When Coit Tower opened the concept of a psycho shooting at people with a high powered rifle from the top of the building would have been unimaginable! But that was 1933, and this is 1972, I mean, it was when this episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ was filmed. The sniper is shooting from the first left window from the center of the tower.
The sniper’s view from Coit Tower and the view today:
Papa Cop (Karl Malden) and “Buddy Boy” (Michael Douglas) arrive on the scene.
“What do you think, Buddy Boy?”
“Well, I think it’s a nice piece of engineering, a wonderful symbol of achievement during the Great Depression! It stands out as an accomplishment during a low period in our country’s history! To me it……”
“No, Buddy Boy, I mean the guy up on top who’s trying to shoot people.”
A plan is put into place. They’re going to try the old, “Drive around the Columbus Statue to make him think that you’re leaving and then rush the building.” trick.
“Go!”
The approach.
The takedown.
“We have you nailed dead to rights! We have the rifle, and it’s got your fingerprints on it and yours alone! Officer Mulldoon, take your hands off that rifle, you dummy!”
“Go easy on him, Buddy Boy. At least, he doesn’t wear black pants and brown shoes!” Click below for a link to another episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ I posted in December of 2014.
https://sfinfilm.com/2014/12/31/the-streets-of-san-francisco-takes-bart-15/
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Hello,
thankyou for your great website!
This wasn’t an episode for television what happened at Coit Tower. It was reality! It was filmed in reality, real time. I was at that scene at the time, worked for the SFPD. I shot him with a rifle. You could see me in the old, uncut version of “Streets of San Franciso” aired in the 1970s. The sniper was hit by a real bullet, was injured and came to hospital but he survived. He was mentally disturbed. Your photo shows no injury, that’s strange. It has been digitally manipulated.
Please give me a feedback.
With kind regards
Adrian Bookman
Interesting, Adrian. I watched that episode again just recently, and it clearly was a television filming with actors. The police surrounding the tower, Keller and Stone and the sniper were all portraying roles. The actor playing the sniper, who was captured without a shooting, is filmed telling Karl Malden and Michael Douglas that he did the shooting because he was mad at his girlfriend. I’ll look up the episode again to see if I can get his name. Curiously, that scene is not connected to the serial killer Keller and Stone were pursuing in the episode, so it may have been inspired by an incident at Coit Tower you were involved with, and I’m proud of you, but the scene I did the captures of was all “Hollywood”.
Hello,
thankyou very much for your comprehensive reply. I knew Karl and Michael personally. They worked for the Police of San Francisco in reality and were actors on the side. Karl changed his name from “Mladen George Sekulovic” to Karl Malden in real life. I have to tell you that I was cut out of all episodes of “Streets of San Francisco”. But why? I don’t know. Because I’m Aryan? Maybe. This was a problematic matter in the 1960s. I would say only two percent of the American population is Aryan, the majority of the whites (70%) is Caucasian. Karl was Caucasian. He knew that. The white race was differentiated into Caucasians and Aryans. The police in the United States used these terms in their police work. And this might be the reason for the partly new synchronization of the TV series which I have noticed. They deleted the racial terms.
To talk about Coit Tower again: This really happened. The old uncut version of this episode is much different. Did you see a hospital scene with the sniper in bed and his arm bandaged? This was the old original version. But this scene was cut out.
with kind regards
Adrian