Sipple meaning

Sara jane moore
Which president was never elected
Robert milk

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A Reluctant Hero

On September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Ford as he left the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Unlike in the attempt on Ford’s life 17 days earlier by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Moore’s gun did not misfire. Moore simply missed on the first shot, but then attempted a second. As she pulled the trigger, her arm was grabbed by bystander Oliver Sipple, and her shot missed the President. It ricocheted and hit a local taxi driver instead (who was okay, by the way). Moore was then arrested before she could make any more attempts.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Sipple was a former U.S. Marine who was wounded in Viet Nam. When he was released from the Veteran’s Hospital in 1970, he moved to San Francisco, where he became an active member of the LGBTQ+ community. After Sipple saved the President’s life, Ford returned to Washington, and soon sent a personal letter of thanks.

Had the story ended there, it would have been a happier one. Instead, Sipple was outed to a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle by multiple membe

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| by Sydney Fairman |

In 1975, Oliver Wellington “Billy” Sipple was a 33-year-old Vietnam veteran living in San Francisco. In the same year on Sept. 22, Sipple was one in the crowd of 3,000 people that had gathered outside San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel to see President Gerald R. Ford. Standing next to Sipple was Sara Jane Moore.

Within minutes, Moore had fired two shots from a revolver; the first narrowly missed the President. The second ricocheted and hit a cab driver, who survived, after Sipple dove towards Moore and grabbed her arm. Sipple was immediately hailed as a hero; the All-American, ex-marine who saved the President’s life. However, the narrative surrounding Sipple shifted within days, when he was publicly outed as homosexual.

On Sept. 4, WDET rebroadcasted an hour-long RadioLab episode on Sipple. The episode, which originally premiered last September, goes into depth about Sipple’s halting of the assassination attempt on President Ford, his outing by gay rights icon Harvey Milk and the news media, his subsequent suing of news outlets and columnist Herb Caen an

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The ethical debate about whether or not it was okay for Sipple to be forcefully outed by the media still rages among both seasoned and student journalists alike. In Christopher Meyers's book Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach, Meyers writes that some journalists argue "that once crimes, accidents, natural disasters, and heroic acts are reported, the individuals involved are considered 'public figures,' so that further privacy-invading coverage of their lives is justified."

However, Meyers argues the term "public figure," cannot simply be thrust upon someone, as it was with Sipple: "Individuals become 'public figures' when they choose to define themselves as such because they seek or have attained public office or desire public attention for some other personal or professional reason and the media agrees that they deserve public attention." Sipple, in contrast, was just a former Marine doing his best to protect the leader of his country.