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N0KFQ > TODAY 04.02.08 14:01l 56 Lines 2586 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Feb 4
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@ALLUS
February 4, 1974
The Symbionese Liberation Army abducts Patty Hearst
Patricia Hearst, the 19-year-old daughter of publishing
billionaire William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped from her
Berkeley, California, apartment. Stephen Weed, Hearst's fiance,
was beaten unconscious by the two abductors. Soon, a ransom
demand came from the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a radical
activist group led by Donald DeFreeze.
DeFreeze had formed the SLA in 1973 after he escaped from prison.
About two years before Hearst's kidnapping, an SLA bomb-making
factory had been discovered by the police. On November 6, 1973,
the SLA shot and killed Marcus Foster, Oakland's superintendent
of schools, with bullets laced with cyanide.
The SLA instructed William Hearst to distribute $70 in food for
ever poor person from Santa Rosa to Los Angeles. Hearst agreed to
give away $2 million to the poor in Oakland to have Patty
released. The Black Muslims, Malcolm X's former organization,
were chosen to manage the food distribution, which turned into a
riot when more than 10,000 people showed up and fought for the
food. Afterwards, the SLA demanded an additional $6 million
giveaway. Hearst refused and they did not release Patty.
The Hearst story took a strange and unexpected turn two months
after the abduction, when the SLA robbed the Hibernia Bank in San
Francisco. The surveillance cameras clearly showed that Patty
Hearst was one of the machine gun-toting robbers. Soon after
followed a taped message from the SLA in which Hearst claimed
that she had voluntarily joined the SLA and was now to be known
as "Tania."
On May 17, 1974, police were tipped that the SLA leaders were at
a Los Angeles home. With 400 police and FBI agents outside the
house, a tremendous gun battle broke out. The police threw gas
canisters into the house and then shot at them, sparking a fire
in which DeFreeze and five other SLA members died. However,
Hearst was not inside the house. She was not found until
September 1975.
Patty Hearst was put on trial for armed robbery and convicted,
despite her claim that she had been coerced, through repeated
rape, isolation, and brainwashing, into joining the SLA.
Prosecutors believed that she actually orchestrated her own
kidnapping because of her prior involvement with one of the SLA
members. Despite any real proof of this theory, she was convicted
and sent to prison. President Carter commuted Hearst's sentence
after she had served almost two years. Hearst was pardoned by
President Clinton in January 2001.
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