From: Joachim Feise (jfeise@ics.uci.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 14 2000 - 08:48:52 PST
With participation of the people who brought us 'Blair Witch':
http://www.macarthurpark.com/index.html
I wonder how many geeks are going to line up for this movie ;-)
-Joe
THE MURDER
On December 2, 1999, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was killed in
MacArthur Park while making an appearance there as part of a
charity event. He was shot from the roof of the Park Plaza hotel,
across the street from the park. According to the official version of
events, the assassin fled, killed a police officer, and was caught in
the hotel basement by another officer, who killed the assassin.
The motive of the alleged gunman, Alek Hidell, remains largely a
mystery, but the official investigation determined generally that
Hidell was a political radical, and made a qualified speculation that
Hidell was attempting to start a "class war" by killing the richest
man in the world and perhaps intended to follow up this assassination
with others. Additionally, the report asserts that Alek Hidell was
angry at the world and sought to make a name for himself by killing
Bill Gates. The official version of the assassination sees no evidence
of other conspirators.
The Doubts
But many private citizens are skeptical of this official version.
Because of the Rampart corruption scandal (MacArthur Park is within
the division), general mistrust of the LAPD and many
still-unanswered questions at the core of the Gates killing, there is a
growing suspicion that the public is not getting the full story.
Soon after the murder of Gates, L.A. residents Debra Meagher and
David James formed an organization called Citizens for Truth to
put pressure on the Mayor, the D.A., the LAPD and the Police
Commission to draft an independent body to look into the Gates
assassination. Although it was unsuccessful in this orginal goal,
Citizens for Truth nonetheless grew into the leading grass-roots
effort related to research into the Gates assassination and has
achieved national status for its criticism of the official report
and for its public demonstrations against various government entities.
The Film
MacArthur Park follows the efforts of this group, exploring a year in the
life of Citizens for Truth as its members sort out internal and external
conflicts in their efforts to uncover the truth behind the murder of Bill
Gates. Given unconditional access to Citizens for Truth's meetings,
research and events, documentary filmmaker Brian Flemming takes you beneath
the shallow "sound bite" reporting of the media coverage of Gates' death
and explores beyond those few portions of the official investigation that
are available to the public. MacArthur Park is more than just an
investigative look into what the media dubbed "the last great crime of the
20th century" -- it's an examination of the human drama that results when
ordinary citizens confront society's most impenetrable institutions in an
attempt to learn the truth.
In production since February of 2000, MacArthur Park is scheduled to
premiere on the film festival circuit in early 2001
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