America.
America; the vast frontier;
a civilization towering above the world.
America, where anyone can do anything on their own terms.
America, where freedom is waiting for you with a smile.
Bright sunshine, sounds of joyous laughter,
a patriotic spirit that has never gone astray...
A promising future that no one can take away,
which gave hope to people all over the world.
America waved a glorious flag,
becoming a world leader.
However, there is another side of America.
Crime is everywhere.
In the dark,
in the corners of narrow streets...
Even on peaceful residential streets.
A father arrived home
and found his family murdered.
Police rush to the location with little information.
In America, carrying a gun is a right,
which puts the lives of officers at risk,
as they don't know when or where they might be shot.
A fight between friends.
A man broke into the home of a peaceful family
in broad daylight, and shot a housewife.
The wounded woman managed to avoid the gunfire,
and escaped by rolling on her side out the door.
The suspect stayed inside of the house
despite pleas for him to surrender.
Eventually, he was shot and killed by the police.
The body was taken for an autopsy.
In America there is an attempted murder
every 3 minutes,
and a murder every 20 minutes.
America, land of freedom. . . and murder.
Americans say Don't carry guns?
Firearms allow everyone to be equal.
Even women and children who might not be as strong, but...
You don't need much strength to pull the trigger.
If handled properly,
guns are extremely useful.
Americans hate to have their freedom restricted.
Prohibiting guns is an infringement of their rights.
Dead bodies, and more dead bodies;
Every day, nonstop;
Guns, and more guns;
An unlimited supply of guns.
Tourists enjoy a gun fight with cowboys
in the old west town of Calico, California.
Americans love the cowboys from decades past.
They were kind, but wild and tough.
They love the cowboys' adventurous spirit
that guided them through the badlands.
They admire the courage,
which allowed them to laugh off the pain
and stress from long journeys.
Ronald Reagan maintained a fearless attitude
with a smile even when he faced death.
March 30, 1981 :
In front of the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC,
there was an attempted assassination
of the president.
Six gunshots:
four are hit, including the president.
Here is the moment that a bullet
went through the president's left lung.
The suspect was captured on camera firing.
The gunman was immediately arrested on the scene.
25 year old John Hinckley Jr.
Is the son of a wealthy business man.
He wrote many love letters to Jodie Foster.
In the closing lines of his last letter, he wrote,
"You can continue to ignore me.
You will soon find out who I am."
Reagan was 70 years old.
He survived surgery,
and was released after only 10 days.
Even though he came close to death,
the president never stopped smiling.
In America,
there is laughter;
In America, there is fredom.
Looking for adventure...
Looking for excitement...
Looking for joy...
The search never ends.
Many different races of people
live together in America.
Cheerful America.
However, America has had a major issue
since it was founded -
racism.
John F. Kennedy was the first president since President Lincoln
that tried to address racial inequality.
However,
Kennedy's dream,
and his life,
were taken by a heartless assassin.
November 22, 1963, 9:30 AM:
Kennedy's trip to Texas had started in San Antonio.
10:30 AM: he reached Fort Worth.
The people admired him from the bottom of their hearts.
The young president was a symbol of the new country.
His smile represented the American
who believed that the future could be full of promise.
His positive outlook gave the country hope
that anything was possible...
even for a man to walk on the moon...
And to end senseless violence.
It had been a while since Jacqueline Kennedy
had appeared in public.
She hadn't been seen since the death
of her newborn baby boy.
11:40 AM: Kennedy landed at the Dallas airport.
With the sun shining, he exited his plane.
11:52 AM: he left the airport.
While driving into the center of Dallas,
his motorcade was moving down the street
through a crowd of excited people.
12:29 PM: his limousine approached this building.
His limousine passed by the window
where an assassin was hiding.
The car decreased its speed to 11 MPH
around this acute corner near Dealcy Plaza.
12:30 PM: the first gunshot rang out.
The shot that killed the president
echoed loudly through the sky.
The bullet went through the car
and sprayed blood throughout,
onto the two motorcycles that followed,
and on the pavement.
Instinctively, Jacqueline reached over the trunk
in an effort to grab the pieces of his brain,
and screams "Oh my God!"
In the car, on the way to the hospital,
she kept repeating over and over,
that "I have his brains in my hand,
I have his brains in my hand...
Lyndon B. Johnson was quickly sworn in
as president,
in the airplane taking the body of Kennedy
to Washington D.C.
The young widow led the grief stricken people
with strength and dignity.
She told her two year old to say goodbye to his father.
The little boy wiped the tears from his eyes
while he gave a military style salute.
World leaders and kings did the same.
The widow lights the eternal flame
with the presidents brothers,
Attorney General Robert Kennedy,
and Edward Kennedy.
An American hero has died.
Two hours after the assassination,
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in this theatre.
He was brought to this Dallas police station.
November 24th: two days after the incident,
Oswald was to be moved to a federal penitentiary.
While exiting the police station,
surrounded by reporters,
an assassin jumped out from the crowd.
The killer was Jack Ruby,
a 52 year old night club owner.
The Warren Commission of 1964
concluded that the assassination
was the work of one person.
Three shots fired:
the president was shot from behind.
However, a special committee in 1979
had a different conclusion;
They stated the assassination
was the work of two individuals.
Four shots fired:
The president was shot from behind
and front simultaneously.
This film was submitted as the basis of their finding.
Did the fatal bullet come from behind,
or from the front?
What really happened is still the subject of dispute.
The assassination of President Kennedy
became a major source of trauma
for the American people.
The wounds it created became a serious problem.
Martin Luthor King Jr.,
winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The black leader faced racism and violence.
April 4, 1968, Memphis, TN :
While standing on a motel balcony,
he was assassinated.
The culprit was a professional killer
who was hired by a couple of racists.
The wounds from John F. Kennedy's
assassination were reopened.
The death of Martin Luther King Jr. triggered riots
in one hundred and twenty-five cities
across the country.
Police couldn't handle the clash between
the citizens and the government.
Eventually 45,000 troops
were called in for assistance.
From New York to Los Angeles,
nearly everywhere in America was under siege.
Riot after riot,
America was a battlefield.
America not only had domestic issues,
but diplomatic ones abroad.
1964: The Vietnam War begins.
The young are always sent to war.
The conflict had been going on for years.
Young people were frustrated because
there was no end in sight,
which led to the antiwar movement gaining momentum.
The youth launched the anti-war movement on the streets
and on college campuses across the country.
An anti-war protestor shouted at a crowd of workers
to help protect them from the police and troops.
However, the workers attacked the protestors.
George Wallace,
was running against Nixon for the presidency.
He had the potential to win...
that was, until he came to Maryland.
The camera captured the moment as it happened.
The shooter was a 22 year old vagrant from Milwaukee
named Arthur Bremer.
The American people transferred their unrealized dreams
from John F. Kennedy to his brother, Robert Kennedy.
He was a respected senator who was loved by blacks,
whites, the old, the young, students, workers
and people from all walks of life.
When he gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel
in Los Angeles,
there was an assassin waiting for him.
Earlier in the day, Kennedy scored a major victory
by winning the California primary.
He already had the respect of a new president.
After midnight, he finished his speech,
and while walking through the crowd to the exit,
he reached the kitchen hallway
where an insane man with a gun was waiting for him.
Kennedy was shot at three times at point blank range.
A bullet entered his head behind his ear.
Even as he was losing a massive amount of blood,
he asked, "ls everybody OK?"
His killer was 24 year old Sirhan Sirhan,
a worker at a horse racing track.
Kennedy couldn't see the wound
at the back of his head.
He asked his wife "Am I dying?"
While holding his hands, she said:
"An ambulance is on its way."
A few hours later, he was dead.
Psychiatrists and witnesses testified that
it was as if Sirhan Sirhan seemed to be in a trance.
Assassins took the lives of two brothers
beloved by the American people,
as well as their dreams.
Guns give equality.
Guns give freedom.
Guns give protection.
Guns are just as common as knives and forks
in the American home.
Guns keep order in America,
however, order is also disrupted by guns.
How many die at the hands of guns?
If there were no guns,
how many wouldn't have to die?
August 1st, 1966,
The University of Texas in Austin:
A man started shooting people walking on a street
from the observation deck of the clock tower
overlooking the town.
The gunman was 25 year old,
ex-Marine sniper, Charles Whitman.
He was an honor student from a white middle-class family,
who never had any trouble with the law.
In the morning,
Whitman brought food and ammunition with him.
He used this elevator to reach the top floor.
This is how many guns he had with him.
Whitman closed and barricaded this door.
He picked people at random and began shooting
from the roof deck,
which provided a great vantage point.
Students tried to save those who were shot,
but some were already dead.
Just a little past noon, 16 people died,
and more than 30 were wounded.
Three police officers finally reached
the top of the tower.
Before he began his shooting spree,
Whitman came to this apartment where his mother lived.
He shot and killed her.
He left a note: "I feel that if there is a heaven,
she is definitely there now..."
Then he went back home.
He quietly entered the bedroom,
and shot and killed his wife while she slept.
Before Whitman was killed by police
and joined his wife,
he shot more than 50 people he didn't even know.
This incident helped create new restrictions on guns,
but it only prohibited minors from ordering guns by mail.
Purchasing a gun is easier than
buying a car in America.
A car requires a license and registration;
a gun does not.
Guns are dangerous weapons
that can take lives within a split second.
September, 1980: In the early afternoon,
at an ordinary supermarket in Los Angeles,
another gun murder.
A security camera captured the event as it happened.
The suspects just paid for a pack of cigarettes,
but didn't take anything... not a cent.
Murders like this happen every day.
Robert Smith was an 18 year old
high school honor student from Arizona.
After loading two guns,
he went into this beauty school.
He ordered five women and two children
to lie down in a circle.
The women tried to plead and talk with him,
but to no avail .
One of them said:
"There'll be 40 people here in a few minutes."
Smith politely replied: "I'm sorry,
but I didn't bring enough ammunition for them"
He then shot each of them twice in the head.
When he was asked why, he said:
"I wanted to make a name for myself. "
Brenda Spencer,
a high school student from San Diego,
received a rifle from her father on her 16th birthday.
One Monday morning,
Brenda pointed the rifle from her window,
and began shooting students
at the elementary school across the street.
A school principal and janitor lost their lives
trying to protect the eleven wounded students.
When asked why, she said:
"I don't like Mondays."
When asked who she wanted to kill,
she said: "it was fun to watch the children
that had red and blue ski jackets on,
as they made perfect targets."
Michael Clark, 17 years old.
With his father's rifle in hand,
he climbed a hill overlooking a stretch of highway
in California.
He began randomly shooting drivers
traveling down the road.
He saved his last bullet for himself.
Tony Barbaro was a popular baseball captain
on his high school team.
One day, for no known reason,
he set fire to his school, and began shooting.
January 7, 1973:
Three black men set a hotel on fire,
and randomly began shooting the guests.
A fierce gun battle with the police ensued.
Some of the guests moved to the balcony
while trying to avoid the flames and gunfire.
While trying to escape,
one of the men said to a maid,
who was also black: "Don't worry.
We're not killing blacks today, just whites.
The revolution is here."
The police department suffered a great loss of life.
Around midnight,
an attack from a helicopter killed two of the suspects
However, the leader of the group
kept on shooting from the roof tower.
Robert Essex was the sole remaining suspect.
He lived in this apartment that had anti-white slogans
all over the walls.
Police carefully moved to the roof,
and simultaneously fired, killing him.
Many officers were seriously injured or killed,
and this insane attack was only ended,
by killing all the attackers.
Muhammad Ali came to this building for a meeting.
His eye caught a glimpse of a man
who wanted to jump to his death.
Ali raced up the building
in the hopes of talking him out of it.
After 20 minutes,
Ali, a sports icon, saved a young man's life.
In 1975,
two women tried to assassinate President Ford.
An ordinary housewife, Sara Jane Moore, said:
"it seemed a correct expression of my anger."
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme,
standing only three feet away from President Ford,
attempted to shoot him, but the gun didn't fire
because she forgot to unlock the safety.
Lynette said she did it for Charles Manson.
Charles Manson, 36 years old.
When he broke into the homes of families,
he would tie them up,
and would leave the members of his group
to brutally massacre everyone.
He had a large group
of fanatical female killers that followed him.
A girl from the group is mimicking Manson's sermon
as if it's the word of God.
Sirhan tried to save Palestine;
Essex tried to save the world from whites;
Manson wanted to save the world from blacks.
Herbert Mullen murdered 13 people
as a sacrifice to save California from an earthquake.
John Frazier, 24 years old.
He was truly committed to the belief
that he had a holy mission to save the world from pollution.
He murdered a family, execution style.
The victims were chosen
because their home was built on a mountain
that was destroying the natural beauty of the land.
The owner was Victor Ohta,
a prominent ophthalmologist and philanthropist.
Frazier left a note that said,
anyone who misuses nature should be executed.
When he was caught,
he shaved the left side of his head,
beard, and eyebrows.
David Berkowitz, 24 years old.
The self proclaimed "Son of Sam."
He believed that his neighbor's dog was evil
and that its barks were orders for him
to cleanse the world.
When he heard the barking dog, he went to a parking lot,
and repeatedly shot teenage couples in parked cars.
When he was finally arrested, he said:
"People say, 'He's smiling,
so he must be happy he killed them.'
I wasn't happy.
I just had a job to do and was doing it."
1977: The Reverend Jim Jones.
He moved his church from San Francisco
deep into the jungle of Guyana in South America.
He named it Jonestown.
More than a thousand worshipped Jones.
He preached that he was saving them
from a world filled with evil.
They followed him without knowing
that it would be their final home.
Some of Jones' congregation
were becoming extremely afraid of his bizarre behavior,
which was getting crazier every day.
Even former members who escaped from the town in 1978,
couldn't believe it when word spread
that members were tested by drinking poison.
U.S. Congressman Ryan, along with the press,
were dispatched on a mission to the town.
At first, Jonestown appeared to be a peaceful place.
However, on the way back to their plane,
the Congressman and press went through the jungle
where they were attacked by a truck of assassins.
The congressman and many of the reporters were killed.
The coldblooded massacre was only just beginning.
The insane savior, Jim Jones,
said the following to his believers.
Finally, Jim Jones drank the poison.
Nine hundred dead bodies were found
laying back to back on the ground.
October 15, 1980,
James Hoskins hijacked a local TV station in Cincinnati,
and held TV reporters and several others hostage.
He barricaded himself in and spoke for over six hours
with a reporter on TV.
Eventually, he released all of the hostages
and sat down to wait for the police.
However, before they stormed the building,
Hoskins killed himself with a magnum handgun.
In San Diego, a man with a gun jumped into the car
of a business man waiting for the light to change.
The man demanded that the driver go to the bank
and withdraw all of his money.
While making the hostage drive,
Newman Augustine Osebar was surrounded by the police.
The police were concerned of guns being fired on the highway,
so they decided to shut it down
while they continued negotiations with the kidnapper.
He finally surrendered .
He complied with the orders of the police
by taking off his coat, belt and shoes,
which he then threw away from the car.
However, the police were prepared
when he pulled out a gun.
The hostage was rescued.
The gunman died in the ambulance;
traffic resumed as usual.
February 8th, 1977, Indianapolis:
Bartender, Anthony Kiritsis, went to a bank
to ask for additional time to pay his mortgage.
When the bank refused, he went into a frenzy,
and took the branch manager hostage.
After parading his hostage to on lookers along the street,
he stole a police car and headed home.
He set up a barricade in his home.
Three days later,
Kiritsis appeared with his hostage for the media.
He pointed the barrel of the gun to the neck of the hostage.
He looped wire around the trigger.
The police were unable to intervene
as they were bound together by the shotgun.
He talked and ranted about nothing for several days.
He later unceremoniously surrendered.
After this incident,
he was not charged with any crime.
He received a severe tongue-lashing.
Three months later, he went back to bartending.
A man standing on a street corner
was shooting at cars passing by.
Police rushed to the scene.
The suspect is Samuel Brown.
He told his neighbors that he came to Earth
carrying a secret message via thc Starship Enterprise.
Samuel Brown died in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital.
Witnesses were critical of the police's response,
claiming they shot him too soon.
The police shouldn't shoot unarmed people.
Even if armed,
the police can't open fire on anyone who isn't a threat.
To shoot or not to shoot...
With only a tenth of a second,
police have to make a quick decision to fire their gun
or they could end up dead.
Being a police officer is a very tense job,
as citizens are allowed to openly carry guns in America.
Within two years,
3 police officers were killed in England,
and 13 in Japan ,
but the number in America is quite shocking:
372 were killed in the line of duty.
To prevent incidents like this,
the FBI made the following training video
on how and when to shoot.
In the manual that accompanied the video, it states:
"Please remember these rules:
#1. Do not point your gun at your fellow officers.
#2. Do not panic.
If you do, you might kill an innocent bystander.
#3. Do not hesitate to shoot;
otherwise, you might get killed."
Lawrence Bittaker
dragged beautiful high school girls into his car.
He would stab them with an ice pick and strangle them
by wrapping steel wire around their necks,
which he would twist and tighten with pliers.
Bittaker recorded the death of one of his victims on audio tape.
When the recording was played in court,
many ran from the room, sick to their stomachs,
because they couldn't handle the violent content.
Sex killers, cruel sex murderers.
Torture, mass murders and abandonment of corpses.
Whenever a mass sex killer appeared,
America was plunged to the depths of terror.
In the '70s, a sex murder like this happened every five weeks.
Juan Corona was a farmer
who raped and killed 25 boys who worked for him.
Patrick Kearney was a space development engineer
that picked up, raped and killed 21 male hitchhikers.
John Gacy, 36 years old,
a construction subcontractor.
He was well-known and respected in his community
for visiting sick children in the hospital.
In 1978,
the bodies of 32 teenagers were found wrapped in trash bags
underneath his house in the Chicago suburbs.
Gacy killed students on their way to school near his house.
This 15 year old boy never came back
after saying that he was on his way to play baseball.
This 17 year old was last seen
just before he went for a job interview with Gacy.
This boy never came back home after asking Gacy for his paycheck.
John Wayne Gacy was finally arrested.
He abandoned the body of his 33rd victim in a river.
He was only caught because he ran out of room in his house.
Houston, Texas:
This is where Wayne Henley grew up.
Starting in 1971, over a two year period,
several young boys deisappeared, one after another -
27 in all.
There was a lot of talk about boys running away from home.
At the time, Wayne was only 15 years old.
Wayne considered Dean Corll like a brother.
When Dean ordered Wayne to bring cute boys to him,
he brought his best friends to Dean's house.
Alcohol and poker were the attraction,
but what was waiting for them was rape,
torture and murder.
Wayne was not interested in rape,
but as time passed he began to enjoy
a sick pleasure from torture.
He used this gun to force his friends
to take off their clothes,
then he would handcuff them to a board,
and hack them to pieces.
Wayne's torture methods became more brutal as time went on.
The homosexual torture murders
continued for the next two and a half years.
Suddenly one night, Dean attempted to rape Wayne.
After an intense fight,
Wayne finally shot Dean to death.
Wayne showed police
where the murdered victims were buried.
Bulldozers were needed because of the numerous bodies.
Many boys who were thought to have
run away from home were found - one after another.
Among those found were brothers who were close to Wayne;
a few of his school friends;
and a 9 year old who was the son of a local grocery store owner.
One of the many victims was David Hilligiest,
13 years old, who was like a brother to Wayne.
Both of the boys' mothers were friends
before they were even born -
They were like sisters.
David and Wayne were always happily playing together.
After David went missing,
Wayne visited his mother almost every day.
He appeared very sympathetic and said that he would find him.
He even put up posters all over town.
Wayne pretended to look for David,
but he had already dead for some time.
After this information became public knowledge,
one of Wayne's friends said:
"I can't believe he is a murderer.
Who should I believe from now on?"
Another victim's mother asked who she could trust
if you have to suspect your own child's friends.
1979: Kenneth Bianchi was called "The Hillside Strangler"
as he ditched the bodies of his victims
on the hills around Hollywood.
All of his victims were female.
While the women were out walking,
they were dragged into his car, and killed.
Bianchi was arrested with his cousin, Angelo Buono,
who was his accomplice.
Bianchi appeared sane in the court room,
but under hypnosis,
he showed a dark side as a murderer.
Ted Bundy.
The FBI considers him to be
the worst sex murderer in American history.
Over a five year period,
he killed over 40 young women in six different states.
Bundy was born in Seattle, Washington.
He was a graduate student in law
and a suicide counselor.
He was considered to be one of the best and the brightest,
which led to him becoming an assistant to the governor.
His friends and professors believed
that he would one day be a governor himself.
However, he had another side.
He had a villainous and evil face.
He lured his victims with a charming smile.
Once he got them, he wouldn't let go
until he sucked the last drop of their blood.
Police departments in six states held the same opinion -
the suspect in 40 cases was Bundy.
However, no solid evidence could be found
to charge him in a court of law.
Bundy never left fingerprints,
and there was no one who could identify him
because he always changed his appearance.
When Bundy forcefully abducted a 12 year old girl from a park,
everyone believed him to be a father scolding his child.
He dragged the girl into an abandoned building,
tied her up, and beat her to death.
He was finally charged with several counts of murder
in Tallahassee, Florida.
He acted as his own attorney in court.
He said he would show off his remarkable skills.
January 15, 1973:
Bundy, carrying a steel bar, quietly broke into a sorority.
He went from room to room,
and bludgeoned the sleeping female students to death.
There were bite marks on one of the victims' hips.
The impression that his teeth left
were just as identifiable as a fingerprint.
It was a perfect match with Bundy's teeth.
Three female students, who miraculously survived
Bundy's spree, took the witness stand.
This survivor's jawbone was so severely broken,
it had to be reattached with a steel pin.
She had to give up her career as a professional ballerina
because of the injuries she suffered.
Ted Bundy listened to his death sentence
as if he was waiting for the results of sports scores.
1973: Ed Kemper,
then 24 years of age, killed his mother.
Afterwards, he turned himself in
and confessed to killing eight female students
over a two year period.
He also admitted to dismembering
and having sex with the bodies and cannibalizing the remains.
At the beginning of this interview, Kemper said:
"A person who has given up,
who is habitually negligent, or who is weak,
will always become a victim, given an opportunity."
Kemper was arrested for the murder of his grandparents.
Five years later, he was returned to his mother,
who, his psychiatrist warned, he should never see again.
When he carefully planned and picked his prey,
who were mostly female students hitchhiking,
he wore these glasses.
Kemper chopped up his victims, and then had sex with their remains,
which he would later bury, with the exception of their heads.
He would bring those back home, and sleep with them for days.
Using a hammer, Kemper beat his mother to death.
He then chopped off her hands and head.
He yelled at the head for over eight hours
with all of the anger he had suppressed.
Even though it's been a hundred years
since the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,
a gun battle occurs in the middle of town
like nothing is wrong.
This incident happened in North Carolina.
In the center of town,
blue collar workers clashed with the KKK,
who tried to exile non-whites to another country.
The KKK immediately drew their guns against the workers,
who only had clubs.
Five of the workers died - eight were wounded.
The KKK members who shot them were not charged,
as their actions were considered self-defense.
Many different people are hanging around,
are mixed up and living together in America.
Everyone grows up with different roots,
different traditions and beliefs.
Some kill others to protect their own beliefs;
murderers kill for their own pleasure,
while some shoot others for no reason.
Rage and violence.
It's the dark side of the American nightmare.
John Lennon.
A man who sought peace and love.
Lennon died...
...from a bullet that came from this man,
a person John gave an autograph to six hours earlier,
as seen in this photo.
December 8th, 1980, New York:
After Lennon left a recording studio,
he was gunned down in front of the gate of his apartment building.
The man, Mark David Chapman, who worshipped Lennon fanatically,
believed that he himself was Lennon
and the real John Lennon, whom he ended up shooting,
was an impostor.
That day fierce winds and snow covered New York.
The peoples' hearts froze; Lennon's spirit didn't die.
The hearts of 80,000
that represented cvcry American's hope,
filled Central Park.
The hope for peace, and Lennon, live on together forever.
Many pray for love and peace every day.
The world will keep giving blood and tears,
but we won't be defeated.
We will live,
holding hands with each other,
and continue to be courageous.