My dad (now in his 70's) told me once (strong use of ONCE) about how he used to rub shoulder often with Jim Jones while fighting for the tenants of the Internation Hotel in San Francisco.

He lived about 30 minutes away and said that he was on the call-down list that would engage people to congregate in front of the "hotel" every time the SFSO would show up to do an eviction there. He'd get a call, then call his ten people, then haul ass to the city to block the police.

According to him, at least on one occasion, the people in the building threw a deputy out of a window to prevent them from evicting someone.

I asked him about it once after I found out Jim Jones was involved and he said he went to a couple of their meetings, but wasn't really into it, so he took off (there were apparently a lot of these types of groups from what I can research.)

Him and his buddies were all about making trouble for SF cops, but the "hoodoo" (his words) of Jones wasn't his thing. Apparently, some of his friends from the movement at the Hotel got heavily involved with Jones, though. He always kinda trails off and changes the subject at that point. I strongly believe that he lost a few friends at Jonestown.

I've pried over the years, but he's mostly incredibly mum on most everything in his life before 1980.