Sara Jane Moore - Attempted Assassination of Gerald Ford

Attempted Assassination of Gerald Ford

Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but that organization had decided that she presented no danger to the president. She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident, but was released from arrest. The police confiscated her .44 caliber revolver and 113 rounds of ammunition.

Moore was about 40 feet away from President Ford when she fired a single shot at him with a different firearm, a .38 caliber revolver. She was standing in the crowd across the street from the St. Francis Hotel. She was using a gun she bought in haste that same morning and did not know the sights were six inches off the point-of-impact at that distance and she narrowly missed. FBI case agent Richard Vitamanti measured the location the next day. After realizing she had missed, she raised her arm again, and Oliver Sipple, a Marine no longer on active duty, dived towards her, knocking her arm the second time, perhaps saving President Ford's life. Judge Samuel Conti, still on the bench in 2010, spoke on the record, that Moore would have killed President Ford had she had her own gun, and it was only "because her gun was faulty," that saved the president's life. During her second attempt, Sipple grabbed Moore's arm and then pulled her to the ground. Sipple said at the time: "I saw pointed out there and I grabbed for it. I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off." The single shot which Moore did fire from her .38 caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel and it slightly injured a bystander.