Talk:Sara Jane Moore

Escape attempt

In the Media section, it says she spoke about her escape attempt in 1979, but this isn't addressed in the Trial and Imprisonment section. Can anyone provide a good source on this attempt, i.e. date of the attempt, how long she was out, how she was recovered, etc.? 67.8.203.16 (talk) 20:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Background

When and how did she get the last name Moore? Assume it was from one of the 4 marriages, but article doesn't say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Venqax (talk • contribs) 18:01, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Quotes

All that section belongs to wiki-quote and should be removed from the main article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.153.163.5 (talk) 03:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Confused

This article makes it sound like she made staged the assassination attempt in order to re-establish her cover as an FBI agent. If that is the case, why is she in prison? I'm confused! --Rebroad 15:57, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Source(s)?

"In order to carry out a plot she planned with a radical organization and prove herself with her radical friends"

I suspect the source for that statement is either from her June 1976 Playboy Magazine Interview or Steven Weed's book. It's been a while since I read either one, but it would be nice if this assertion were either sourced or expressed as conjecture rather than stated as established fact.

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That statement you refer to is difficult to source. The Playboy interview was never carefully "fact checked" and I'm not sure it could have been. The writer interjected a lot of his own impressions and then presented them as Sara Jane's. In reality, she did not shoot at President JUST to get attention from her friends. There was a lot more to it than that. Most of what went on in the early and middle 70's was heavily controlled by Washington as it was just after the Viet Nam War was finishing, the Zebra Murders, Patty Hearst kidnapping etc. The government did not want the public to know how close Ford came to being killed, so they encouraged a lot of false publicity.

Geri Spieler

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Is there any relation to Michael Moore? 70.228.134.61 No----no relation to Michael Moore.

Prison?

"Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia" isnt that the same prison Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme escaped from? i think someone has there information mixed up. OR did Fromme and Moore serve time in, and escape from, the same prison? Alias pizzaman

They were both in that prison, and both did escape, although they escaped in different years. The article has been corrected and properly sourced. Wittyname 03:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Motive

No motive is given. Being obsessed with Patty Hearst is not a motive. Tim Long 08:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

More than eight years later after the above comment, the article still doesn't say why she did it. Surely some of the sources must have reported on this. Ntsimp (talk) 15:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Moore was interviewed on CNN in 2015, viewable on Youtube (See Why she tried to kill the President). In this, she discusses her motive, claiming it was due to her disliking the fact that Ford wasn't elected president and her not wanting to damage the reputation of others who felt the same. --172.222.54.54 (talk) 00:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

More Data

There's plenty more information at . I'll go back and mine it for info later. Wittyname 09:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

SLA/Hearst comment

The comment regarding Hearst and PIN that states it was founded to "answer" the SLA's "claim" is totally inaccurate. Hearst was EXTORTED by the SLA into creating PIN lest his daughter be murdered. The way it reads now, it makes it sound like the SLA merely suggested he become more philanthropic, and he concurred....it gives the impression that the kidnapping and PIN are somewhat unrelated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.237.133 (talk) 21:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Did she make parole?

The article mentions that she had a parole hearing on September 21, 2007? I find no mention of this elsewhere. Did it occur and, if so, what was the outcome? --Drmike 22:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been updated. Note that parole has been abolished for federal crimes, however persons (like Moore) under sentence for offenses committed before December 1, 1987 remain eligible for parole regardless of the length of the sentence. Ellsworth (talk) 17:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Just added a report from late February 2019 that she had been rearrested for a parole violation. I wasn't able to quickly determine whether she has since been re-released. Something for someone to follow up on. (I may try when I have a bit more time, but go ahead if you can do it sooner.) If she's still in, then the infobox needs revision. --JohnPomeranz (talk) 02:54, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

She would have assassinated Ford if she had her own gun

This whole passage is illogical. Sara Jane Moore's arm, and shot was deflected by Oliver Sipple, the gay ex-Marine. Was she using some special gun that could be deflected, and still hit the target? VERY SLOPPY WRITING.Fester Bestertester, Esq. 04:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Frankly to make a 40 ft offhand shot would require that she was quite proficient and that the gun was pretty good. Saying that she missed because the sights were off seems like wild speculation unless there is a better source than a judge speaking from the bench. His statement also assumes that Ford would have died from a single shot, which is actually pretty rare. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.145.95 (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Removed excessive 'in popular culture' details

I removed the following text, and just left in the link to Assassins. If this stuff (quotes from lyrics, discussion of plot structure) properly belongs on WP at all, it is certainly within a discussion of the musical, not at this page.

Moore is portrayed as a flaky accident-waiting-to-happen who can't wield a gun properly; in the "Gun Song" (the only song she sings outside of the Assassins as a group) when she "squeezes her little finger to change the world" along with the boys, hers goes off although theirs do not, and in "Everybody's Got the Right" the Proprietor reminds her "Don't forget that guns can go boom," when she accidentally aims hers at him. Along with Fromme, she serves as a bit of comic relief before major events in the musical, such as Charles Guiteau's assassination of James Garfield.. The interactions between Moore and Fromme presented in the musical, which include smoking marijuana and firing off pistols at a bucket of fast food, are entirely fictitious, however.

Cheakamus (talk) 17:55, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

References

Today show

The following:

She told Lauler "I am glad that I didn't Kill him, but I don't regret trying".

is a misquote. Nowhere in the interview does she say, "I don't regret trying." She did regret trying. Watch the video and this can be confirmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.241.171 (talk) 07:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

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Two shots? Or only one.

The cited sources all seem to indicate that only one shot was fired, with the second one prevented by the bystander. This and its related page on the assassination attempt need to be corrected, it seems. It looks like there was only one shot, and a fragment from it wounded the bystander. Bdushaw (talk) 04:36, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I reiterate that there was only one shot fired. I have corrected the related article Attempted assassination of Gerald Ford in San Francisco to reflect these facts. That article cites several original newspaper articles on the event, which are clear that only one shot was fired. The bystander then prevented a second shot. It seems the bystander injured was superficially hurt by a bullet fragment of the first shot ("he survived"? An undue emphasis.) I have looked at the citations in this article and they are, with all due respect, not that great. In short, this article needs to be revised to correct these factual errors and its citations need to be upgraded to something better; see the citations of the article just mentioned. Perhaps I will return to the article to do that. I see the article has had lots of recent activity. Bdushaw (talk) 16:41, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

"attempted presidential assassin"

I noted the recent edits by User:Sebbog13 that used this description as a "Short description" for the Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme articles. I don't wish to make a federal case over it, but there are two issues with such a description. I am unsure of a remedy, mostly because I don't know the guidance for Short descriptions. The first issue is that the wording logically means the person was attempting to be a presidential assassin; it is at the very least awkward and ambiguous. The second issue is that it is a "crime label", c.f., WP:Crime labels, an essay. The description implies, for example, that the subject's occupation or identity was as a presidential assassin (e.g., their life was going around assassinating presidents). That's not exactly true, however; rather, they were for a time wrapped up in an insane perception or ideology, etc. Per the discussion of the essay (which I wrote much of) a short description like "An American woman who attempted to assassinate US President Ford." would be more the mark, though I am unsure that such a wording is consistent with a Short Description. Rather than employing an ambiguous, potentially misleading label, the statement is more specific as to the crime. "Crime Labels" have been a source of voluminous, endless argument. Bdushaw (talk) 09:11, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I've consulted the experts at Wikipedia_talk:Short_description#"Crime_labels"_in_a_short_description...a_quandary who had a number of useful recommendations and suggestions. I've revised the Short description of this article accordingly. Seems to me a general rule is that if an article does not employ a crime label, then the Short description should not employ one either (however tempting that may be). Bdushaw (talk) 08:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)