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This is a bizarre but true story...
Seasons in San Francisco aint exactly well defined, heat inversions when the Santa Ana winds blow to the south make for some of the best winter weather in the USA and summers dont inspire fears of global warming to say the least. So I cant remember what time of the year it was, or even the year this happened to me, but as I recall my friends and I were either 8th or 9th graders and it was 1973-74. We lived on Mt Davidson smack in the middle of the city and would eventually attend the newly built McAteer HS situated on Portola Dr on the southern slope of Twin Peaks.
Mt Davidson was famous for the massive concrete cross easily seen from across the bay at night when lit up, the cross would be featured in the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry" - inspired by none other than Zodiac himself. For entertainment my friends and I would walk down to the new HS to play around at night, they had batting cages made of hard plastic and we'd climb up on top and jump around for the trampoline effect.
We weren't really familiar with Zodiac even though he was infamous by then, its one thing to hear about some guy out there killing people and another to think he's trying to kill you. So we didn't fully understand the ramifications of what happened to us and we never filed any report with the police (others did we later learned).
After playing around on the batting cages one night we (4 of us) walked across the football field to the long staircase to the west leading up to the gym, the school itself was to our north about 200-300 yds sitting up on terraces maybe 50 feet above the field. As we neared the staircase we heard a "thwap" like sound, kinda like a bug hitting the windshield hard. We stopped very briefly to discuss what we had heard and continued walking and then heard it again, something was hitting the ground near us. After the second sound we knew this wasn't good and started running up the stairs. At least twice more we heard bullets hitting the concrete stairs we were climbing.
We made our escape behind the gym building and weren't real sure what had happened or we would have said something to people in authority, or at least our parents, but we later learned there were older people in the gym that night playing basketball and they did report being shot at, just the sound of bullets landing nearby, the shooter was using a silencer. Looking back I believe the shooter was at the eastern end of the school, easy access to a commanding view of both the field and the entrance to the gym.
I'd say he got off at least 4 shots at us... And I'll bet some of the bullets are still there in the ground just east of the main staircase...
Seasons in San Francisco aint exactly well defined, heat inversions when the Santa Ana winds blow to the south make for some of the best winter weather in the USA and summers dont inspire fears of global warming to say the least. So I cant remember what time of the year it was, or even the year this happened to me, but as I recall my friends and I were either 8th or 9th graders and it was 1973-74. We lived on Mt Davidson smack in the middle of the city and would eventually attend the newly built McAteer HS situated on Portola Dr on the southern slope of Twin Peaks.
Mt Davidson was famous for the massive concrete cross easily seen from across the bay at night when lit up, the cross would be featured in the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry" - inspired by none other than Zodiac himself. For entertainment my friends and I would walk down to the new HS to play around at night, they had batting cages made of hard plastic and we'd climb up on top and jump around for the trampoline effect.
We weren't really familiar with Zodiac even though he was infamous by then, its one thing to hear about some guy out there killing people and another to think he's trying to kill you. So we didn't fully understand the ramifications of what happened to us and we never filed any report with the police (others did we later learned).
After playing around on the batting cages one night we (4 of us) walked across the football field to the long staircase to the west leading up to the gym, the school itself was to our north about 200-300 yds sitting up on terraces maybe 50 feet above the field. As we neared the staircase we heard a "thwap" like sound, kinda like a bug hitting the windshield hard. We stopped very briefly to discuss what we had heard and continued walking and then heard it again, something was hitting the ground near us. After the second sound we knew this wasn't good and started running up the stairs. At least twice more we heard bullets hitting the concrete stairs we were climbing.
We made our escape behind the gym building and weren't real sure what had happened or we would have said something to people in authority, or at least our parents, but we later learned there were older people in the gym that night playing basketball and they did report being shot at, just the sound of bullets landing nearby, the shooter was using a silencer. Looking back I believe the shooter was at the eastern end of the school, easy access to a commanding view of both the field and the entrance to the gym.
I'd say he got off at least 4 shots at us... And I'll bet some of the bullets are still there in the ground just east of the main staircase...
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