Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple Page #8
shield of protection around you.
And I just looked at him
like he was totally insane.
Congressman Ryan was
directly across from me,
and I saw this Temple member
walk up behind him
and he was actually
crying and shaking
and all of a sudden,
he pulled out this knife and said,
All right, motherf***er,
youre gonna die.
We all jumped on him,
and there were just screams of horror
everywhere.
in the pavilion and the truck stopped.
Then, shortly thereafter,
Congressman Ryan starts walking out
in this bloodstained shirt.
Those of us in the news media
viewed Congressman Ryan
as a form of protection,
a shield of the United States.
What happened there
in those few moments
made it clear that nobody was safe.
I went back to my cottage.
All I wanted to do was
see my wife and my son.
Gloria and I were laid down
on the cot and we just held each other
and I said, You know,
I think we may all die.
And she said, she kind of looked at me
and then she looked down at our son,
who was playing on the floor
with the toys,
and she said,
Youre scaring him.
I had literally opened my mouth
to say we need to leave,
when there was an
announcement on the loud speaker,
Will everybody report to
the pavilion for a meeting.
We drove back
to the airstrip, Port Kaituma.
All of a sudden, we saw a dump truck
from far away arriving to this airstrip.
We realized these people
catch up from people from Jim Jones,
theyre very close lieutenant
to Jim Jones.
These three guys,
they get off the truck
and walk around this area
as though they were
looking for somebody.
They stared at us for a little bit,
but they didnt say one word.
They didnt ask anything.
Right away,
they walked back to the truck.
They drove this truck
all the way across the airstrip
and stop on this side of the plane,
so literally
they cut us off from the jungle.
We never know theres people
hidden inside the dump truck.
The moment it stopped,
they start shooting right away.
Everybody ran toward the plane,
on this side of plane.
They try to hide
underneath the wheels.
Then the Congressman ran under
the plane, and I sort of followed suit
and got behind one of the tires.
All you can hear is the gun
"pop, pop, pop" goes off constantly.
We lie flat on the tarmac
at that moment.
But shortly afterwards,
I heard my partner, the cameraman.
He yelled, Oh sh*t. He said he got...
he got shot. He was sitting up.
There were people
tumbling and yelling
and letting out cries
as they were hit.
I was hit in my arm and wrist.
I felt a tremendous explosion,
right next to my head.
I got a tremendous pain
ran through my arm and on my shoulder.
I was really shaking,
but I didnt move.
I took the pain and hold still.
I was lying on my side,
pretending that I was dead,
with my head down.
And...
they came and shot me
at point blank,
point blank range.
I remember someone coming to me
and telling me that
Congressman Ryan was dead.
But I was at a point where
I didnt know
how much more time
I was going to be alive.
The guns dead and all we can hear
this one engine was still running.
So all you could hear
the engine noise. And thats it.
We walked up to the pavilion
together, with everybody else.
It was very quiet.
It was very somber. It was very sad,
but it wasnt a death march.
The congressman is dead!
You think theyre going to
allow us to get by with this?
You must be insane. Theyll torture
some of our children here.
Theyll torture our people.
Theyll torture our seniors.
We can not have this!
He said, Well, we got to go.
We got to get out of here.
We got to... we got to go to sleep.
Get the solution together.
If we cant live in peace,
then lets die in peace.
Maria Katsaris walked up to him
and whispered in his ear,
and he looked at her and said, Is there
anyway to make it taste less bitter?
And she said,
No, no apparently not.
And he said, Is it quick?
And she said,
Yeah, its supposed to be quick.
Anyone that has any
dissenting opinion, please speak.
When we destroy ourselves,
were defeated.
We let them,
the enemies, defeat us.
On the last day of Jonestown,
Christine Miller stood up and said,
I dont want to die here.
Why are we going to throw
all this away? Weve worked too hard.
I look at all the babies,
and I think they deserve to live.
I agree, but also they deserve
Whats more, they deserve peace.
We all came here for peace.
Is it too late for Russia?
Shes calling Jim Jones
on some of the things that
he has promised them
that they were going to do.
Jim had promised, as an
alternative to them dying in Jonestown,
that they could go
to the Soviet Union.
Im listening to you.
Im right now
making a call to Russia.
What more do you suggest?
Eventually, the rhetoric
ratchets up enough
that she is shouted down.
Christine, your life
has been extended to today.
That youre standing there
is because of him.
Thats when I noticed
that had kind of taken positions
up around the pavilion.
Im thinking,
Where did all of these
f***ing guns come from?
Jones came down off the podium
and he said,
Hey, we got to do this.
We got to... we got to go,
that if we dont go this way,
we going to go like this.
They were coming,
taking like newborn babies
out of their mothers arms.
Mother, mother, mother,
mother, mother please.
Mother, please,
please, please dont
Dont do this!
Dont do this!
Lay down your life with your child.
But dont do this.
There was a young kid,
his name was Sunny
and when he came inside,
he bumped into me.
At that same time,
hes falling to the ground
and hes going into convulsion.
Hurry, hurry, my children, hurry!
All right, let us not fall
into the hands of the enemy.
Hurry my children!
Hurry!
I grabbed the kid
from the shoulders up,
and in that process of
taking him out of the pavilion,
this kid died in my arms.
I mean, I just felt
the life go out of him.
To me... at that point,
I knew that this sh*t was real.
Die with respect,
die with a degree of dignity.
Its nothing to death, its just
stepping over into another plane.
Dont, dont be this way!
I aint never used
the term suicide,
and Im not gonna never
use the term suicide.
That man killed... was killing us.
As I walked up
to the back of the pavilion,
I saw a woman named Rosie
on the ground crying,
holding her dead baby.
There were maybe eight
or nine other people who were dying,
or in the process of dying.
Inside, I just wanted things to stop.
Please, just let me catch my breath,
let me figure out
whats happening here.
I looked to my right
and I saw my wife,
with our son in her arms
and poison
being injected into his mouth.
My son was dead and
he was frothing at the mouth.
You know, cyanide
makes people froth at the mouth.
My wife died in my arms
and my dead baby son
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"Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/jonestown:_the_life_and_death_of_peoples_temple_11390>.
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