101 California Street shootings

101 California Street Shootings is the name given to a mass shooting that took place July 1, 1993 in San Francisco, California, claiming the lives of eight people and the shooter. The killings sparked a flurry of legal and legislative actions that were precursors to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that took effect in 1994.

The Shootings

At 2:57 p.m. on July 1, 1993, 55-year-old businessman Gian Luigi Ferri entered an office building at 101 California Street in San Francisco, and made his way to the 34th floor and the offices of the law firm of Pettit & Martin. (Ferri, who had been a client of the firm at least ten years prior to the shootings, nursed an irrational grudge against Pettit & Martin for many years.) Exiting the elevator on the 34th floor, Ferri began to open fire with a pair of TEC-9 handguns and a .45 pistol. After roaming this floor he then moved down one floor through an internal staircase and continued shooting. The carnage was continued on several floors before Ferri eventually shot himself fatally as San Francisco Police closed in. Eight people were killed in the attack, and six others injured. [http://www.zpub.com/sf/1993/gun1.gif]

The reason for the shootings was never fully determined, but a letter left behind by Ferri claimed a long list of complaints. [http://www.zpub.com/sf/1993/gun5.jpg]

The Victims

Allen J. Berk, 52, was a partner in Pettit & Martin, and was well respected in the San Francisco legal community. He earned an undergraduate degree from City University in New York, and received his law degree from George Washington University. Berk was experienced in labor law, and had represented a number of management groups.

Jack Berman, 36, was a partner with the firm Bronson, Bronson, & McKinnon who was visiting the offices of Pettit & Martin on the day of the shootings. A president of the American Jewish Congress known for his work specializing in employment law and chairing the firm's pro bono committee, Berman was born in Moosup, Connecticut, in 1957 and graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in 1979 before completing his juris doctor from Boston University School of Law.

Berman's community work extended beyond the AJC, as he also co-founded TAX-AID [http://www.tax-aid.org] , an organization that provides free income tax preparation, and the San Francisco Transitional Housing Fund, a program to aid homeless individuals in finding housing. In recognition of Berman's service to the legal profession and the Bay Area populace, the California Young Lawyers' Association gives an annual award in Berman's name [http://calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?cid=11398&id=7084] .

Donald Merrill, 48, was an employee of the Trust Company of the West, which had offices at 101 California Street. He had worked as an energy industry consultant, working with independent energy projects

Shirley Mooser, 64, was a secretary at the Trust Company of the West, which had offices at 101 California Street.

Deborah Fogel, 33, was a legal secretary for the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, which had offices at 101 California Street.

Jody Jones Sposato, 30, was a young mother.

David Sutcliffe, 30, was a law student at the University of Colorado at Boulder who was interning at Pettit & Martin for the summer.

John Scully, 28, was a lawyer with Pettit & Martin who died, according to news reports, while protecting his wife from the gunman. Interested in labour law, Scully earned his bachelors degree from Gonzaga University, then received his law degree at the University of San Francisco.

Injured in the attack were Vicky Smith, 41; Sharon Jones O'Roke; Michelle Scully, 27; Brian F. Berger, 39; Deanna Eaves, 33; and Charles Ross, 42.

Reaction

The shootings spurred calls for tighter gun control and were followed by a number of legal and legislative actions. This also ended a SF tradition of intern week, where the first two weeks in July were for the sole purpose of hiring the next years' new intern recruits in the financial district and before the internet was the only way to break into the industry.

Shortly after the incident, President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, also known as the Brady Bill, which was a precursor to the sweeping 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included the contentious Federal assault weapons ban. Lawmakers chose not to renew the ban, which expired in 2004. The ban had little effect in California because its gun control laws were already more stringent.

California, at the state level, implemented some of the toughest gun laws in the United States. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/01/MN62991.DTL] The state also repealed a law that had given gun manufacturers immunity against lawsuits, following an attempt by some relatives of 101 California street victims to sue the companies that made the weapons Ferri used.

A number of organizations were formed in the wake of the shootings, including the Legal Community Against Violence [http://www.lcav.org/] , which acts as a resource for information on federal, state, and local firearms policies. The AJC founded the Jack Berman Advocacy Center [http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?sig_id=000917B] to lobby and organize with regard to gun control and violence reduction.

ee also

* List of massacres
* Federal assault weapons ban
* Gun politics in the United States

External links

* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/01/MN62991.DTL San Francisco Gate article about effects of 101 California Street shootings]
* [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/20644/edition_id/422/format/html/displaystory.html j.weekly article about the shootings]
* [http://www.zpub.com/sf/1993/ferrib.html z Publishing aggregation of news articles about the shootings]