On the night of Saturday, Sept. 20, Sally Moore, an estranged FBI informant, late convert to radicalism and an efficient but troublesome bookkeeper, telephoned San Francisco Police Inspector Jack O'Shea. She had helped him before in investigating reports of fraud in last year's $2 million program to distribute food to the San Francisco Bay Area's needy, as demanded by the kidnapers of Patty Hearst.
Moore's typically rambling discourse with O'Shea was vague. She said she had been "hassled by the system," and added: "I'm going to "see if the system works equally for the left as well as the right. I'm going to Stanford to test it." O'Shea was puzzled by the "system" reference, but mention of Stanford meant much. That was where President Ford was to speak on the following day. "A red light went on in my head," O'Shea recalled later. The bulb glowed more brightly when she said, "I'm going to ask you something that will make you recoil in horror. Can you have me arrested?"
O'Shea quickly recalled that Moore had a gun. She had gratuitously offered to help "set up" the man who had sold it to her, Mark Fernwood, 29, leader of the John Birch Society chapter in nearby Danville, Calif., for a possible arrest on illegal gun sales. San Francisco police had also informed the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) of Moore's allegations about her gun purchase. O'Shea told Moore she could indeed be arrested if she carried a concealed weapon.
Alarmed after Moore hung up, O'Shea called the FBI. He related the conversation, described Moore, reported the license number of her 1970 tan Toyota, and expressed his concern that she might be dangerous to the President. The FBI assured him that it would notify the Secret Service. When a Secret Service agent called him Saturday evening, O'Shea reported Moore's cryptic remarks about going to Stanford.
Next morning, when Stanford University police and Santa Clara County sheriffs deputies met with Secret Service agents to coordinate security plans for Ford's visit, they discussed Moore. The security team broadcast a B.O.L. (Be On the Lookout) for Moore on its radio network.
Still worried, O'Shea called the Secret Service again on Sunday morning, asking whether agents wanted Moore picked up. Prudently, they said it "might be a good idea." At the time, however, Moore was pursuing her voluntary undercover work. She was in Danville visiting Fernwood's home gun shop, where he makes replicas of antique weapons for sale. Ostensibly, she had gone there to get in some target practice with Fernwood. Actually, she had taken along an ATF man whom she introduced only as "Chuck."
They decided merely to look at guns. "Chuck's" interest was in finding out whether Fernwood, who is not a licensed gun dealer, was violating any gun laws.
By the time Moore arrived back at her rundown two-story apartment building in San Francisco's multiracial Mission District at about 2:30 p.m., two police officers, at O'Shea's suggestion, were waiting for her. "Do you have a gun?" one of them asked. "Yes, in my purse," said the unsurprised Moore.