Editing Peoples Temple (section)

===Defections===
Some defections occurred,<ref>Reiterman 1982. pp. 225–227.</ref> most especially in 1973, when eight young members {{ndash}} known as the "Gang of Eight" {{ndash}} defected together.<ref name="raven224">Reiterman 1982. p. 224.</ref> Because the Gang of Eight were aware of threats to potential defectors, they suspected Jones would send a search party to look for them.<ref name="raven224" /> Their fears proved correct: Jones employed multiple search parties, including one which scanned highways from a rented airplane.<ref name="raven225">Reiterman 1982. p. 225.</ref> The Gang of Eight drove three trucks loaded with firearms toward [[Canada]], avoiding [[U.S. Highway 101]].<ref name="raven224" /> Because they feared taking firearms over the U.S.–Canada border, the group traveled instead to the hills of [[Montana]], where they wrote a long letter documenting their complaints.<ref name="raven225" />

Former Temple member Jeannie Mills later wrote that Jones called thirty members to his home and forebodingly declared that, in light of the mass defection, "in order to keep our apostolic socialism, we should all kill ourselves and leave a note saying that because of harassment, a socialist group cannot exist at this time."<ref name="paranoia" /> Jones became furious, waving a [[pistol]] at the Planning Commission and referring to the Gang of Eight as "[[Trotskyite]] defectors" and "[[Coca-Cola]] revolutionaries".<ref name="raven226">Reiterman 1982. p. 226.</ref> While the Temple did not execute the suicide plan Jones described, it did conduct fake suicide rituals in the years that followed.<ref name="paranoia">[https://web.archive.org/web/20090114212817/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919897-1,00.html ''Paranoia And Delusions''], Time Magazine, December 11, 1978</ref>