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About NOTHING SO STRANGE
When Microsoft chairman Bill Gates
was shot dead on December 2, 1999, it was a tragedy that resonated throughout the world.
But as time wears on, that tragedy has developed
into a mystery for many observers, who see police misconduct and a
cover-up where others see an open-and-shut case. NOTHING SO STRANGE
follows the efforts of an organized group of these skeptics, who call
themselves Citizens
for Truth, as they launch an aggressive independent
investigation of the Gates assassination and in the process confront
the LAPD, a hostile mainstream press, and the group's own internal
squabbles. With never-before-seen amateur footage of the Gates
assassination, hypnotic 3D
recreations of the various aspects of the crime, and almost unlimited
access to the inner workings of Citizens for Truth, NOTHING SO STRANGE
is ultimately both personal and political-an intimate portrait of
average citizens on a search for the truth, as well as a revealing look
at the last great crime of the 20th Century.
For Citizens for Truth, the mystery begins with the assassination
itself. While there is no question that Bill Gates appeared at a
charity event in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and was killed by two
bullets fired from a rifle on the rooftop of the Park Plaza Hotel, the
motive of the alleged assassin, a 24-year-old African American man
named Alek Hidell, has never been determined. While Hidell's journals
contain references to his concerns
that a "class war" is brewing
in the U.S., in the view of Citizens for Truth his writings amount to
no more than the expression of frustrations shared by many African
Americans. The lack of physical evidence linking Hidell to the crime -
no fingerprints on the murder weapon, for example - and the seemingly
rushed nature of the official District Attorney's office investigation
also arouse the suspicion of the group. Because Hidell was killed in
the hotel basement minutes after the assassination by a lone LAPD
officer who says Hidell tried to shoot him, the public has never heard
Hidell's side of the story. Given the long history of corruption and
cover up by the LAPD (from its Wild West origins to the Rodney King
beating, Mark Fuhrman and the Rampart scandal), Citizens for Truth
makes it their mission to discover the real story behind
the assassination.
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