101 California Street Shooting
On July 1, 1993, a man walked into the law offices of Pettit & Martin on the 34th floor of 101 California Street carrying two TEC-DC9 semi-automatic pistols and opened fire. He killed eight people and wounded six others before taking his own life. The victims were lawyers, a client, and bystanders whose lives intersected at a Financial District office tower on an ordinary Thursday afternoon. The shooting was not the first mass killing in an American workplace, but its setting -- a gleaming high-rise in the heart of one of America's most liberal cities -- gave it a particular resonance that would echo through Congress.
34th Floor
The gunman, Gian Luigi Ferri, had a grievance against the law firm Pettit & Martin dating to a failed real estate transaction. He entered the building with no appointment, took the elevator to the 34th floor, and began shooting indiscriminately. The attack lasted approximately 15 minutes. Eight people died: John Scully, David Sutcliffe, Jody Jones Sposato, Shirley Mooser, Donald Mike Merrill, Deborah Fogel, Allen Berk, and Jack Berman. Six others were wounded. Ferri descended through the building firing as he went before turning the gun on himself on a lower floor.
From Tragedy to Legislation
The shooting became a catalyst for gun control legislation at both state and federal levels. The weapons Ferri used -- TEC-DC9 semi-automatic pistols -- were exactly the type of firearm that advocates had been trying to restrict. Within a year, Congress passed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which prohibited the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms including the TEC-DC9 for civilian use. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who had become San Francisco's mayor after the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk in 1978, was a principal sponsor of the legislation. The families of victims filed lawsuits against the gun manufacturer and the building's management.
The Ordinary Made Vulnerable
101 California Street still stands in the Financial District, a 48-story tower of glass and steel at the corner of California and Davis Streets. The law firm Pettit & Martin dissolved in 1995. The shooting forced a reckoning with workplace security that was still novel in the early 1990s -- the idea that an ordinary office building could become a killing ground. Building security was enhanced across San Francisco and, eventually, nationwide. But the deeper legacy belongs to the eight people who died. Jody Jones Sposato's husband, in testimony before Congress, helped put a human face on the statistics. The victims were not abstractions. They were people who went to work that morning expecting to come home.
From the Air
Located at 37.79°N, 122.40°W in San Francisco's Financial District. The 48-story tower at 101 California Street is visible in the downtown skyline. San Francisco International (KSFO) is approximately 11 nm south-southeast. Oakland International (KOAK) is 10 nm east.