To some, Urban Terrorists are heroes fighting for the oppressed and to others they are misdirected law breakers. This book does wish to attack your beliefs or change any minds but would like to set the record straight about a period of American social justice history that has become distorted over time.
Back in 1975, a small radical group in Berkeley, California came together to forcibly change social justice. This band of extremists called themselves the Symbolism Liberation Army which was visionary name for a group of nonconformists. During this era, the Vietnam Protests had taught young radicals that committing violence in the urban environment could attract news media attention resulting in change.
The SLA would have never left a mark on history if it weren’t for the farfetched plan to kidnap a prominent member of the establishment and hold them for ransom. Little did this band of rabble-rouser radicals realize what enormous reaction would befall them. The plan of kidnapping Patty Hearst, the daughter of a wealth news mogul seemed like a good idea while contemplating how to change the world.
What the members of the SLA couldn’t have understood how that one act of kidnapping the Hearst heiress would change their lives for decades. This book provides a snapshot of all those turbulent years to give context as to what happened to them 30 years later. Several of the SLA members were apprehended back in the 1970s and ended up spending a number of years in prison. However, the so called lucky ones escaped and disappeared into the ‘woodwork.’
One of the escapees was Kathleen Soliah who quickly blended into the Establishment which the SLA was trying to destroy. She changed her name to Sara Jane Olson and married an emergency room doctor and settled down to raise a family of three daughters in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Life couldn’t have been better for her. She was a productive member of the community and loved to perform in the neighborhood plays.
This new Sara Jane Olson didn’t divulge to anyone that, in her earlier life, she had spent considerable time assisting in the building of pipe bombs that were placed in civic centers causing mass destruction. No one knew how she and two other members of the SLA came to Los Angeles and placed pipe bombs under police cars. These bombs were packed with small nails when exploited would act as shrapnel mutilating anyone in the vicinity.
For years life went on for Sara Jane without a ripple of concern. In 2005, the TV program America’s Most Wanted decided to do a 25 year anniversary episode on the SLA featuring those who had escaped. A photo of Kathleen Soliah from 1975 was shown on TV. What were the chances that someone seeing this photo of a young radical and recognizing it as that of matronly suburban housewife Sara Jane Olson?
Unbelievably the connection was made and Sar Jane was arrested and charged with planting explosives under the LAPD police cars. Thus began the prosecution of the old time radical who like a chameleon had changed into a pillar of her community. The question became how should she be treated? Should she be forgiven for her transgressions 25 years ago or should she be regarded as criminal of the law? The news media went into a frenzy not knowing whether to treat her as a saint or a villain.
This book walks you through what happened to Kathleen Soliah and the prosecution of her case. The word bizzar doesn’t fully describe what transcribed in the courtroom. Old school defense attorneys tried to pull shenanigans that didn’t play out well in the new law and order era. If you want to go on the wildest True Crime rollacoaster ride of highs and lows the following chapters will delight you. When you get to the end of this book you will have to decide whether the old Urban Terrorists should be respected or punished for their old irresponsible illegal behavior.
