Citation Needed - The Symbionese Liberation Army

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was an American far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a vanguard army. The SLA was considered by the FBI and American law enforcement as the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Most fugitives of the group were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted.

What did you go see this last weekend? Nope. You don't want to tell me then? I'm not doing this with you. No, we're not doing the bit. What's this? What is this then? Oh, it looks like a ransom letter made out of cut up magazine letters that somebody

slid under the door. Huh. Does no one figured out ransom messaging technology yet to come up with a better solution than that? Yeah, this is actually the worst way to do it. You have a ton of glue to catch fibers and traceable scissor marks on the paper. This is just trivia you happen to know, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have no real experience with it.

Anyway, let's see what it says. Okay, we have Eli, the heir to the Bosnick Empire. Oh, okay, I see. This has to do with this week's episode in the Patty Hors kidnapping and the, yeah. Hey, what exactly is the Bosnick Empire? Oh, it's mostly a half-tune puppy Kong and a one-bedroom sinkhole in New Jersey.

It goes on here. We demand you change the name of your podcast, signed citations needed. Absolutely not. Not that's not going to happen. Okay, just the next line says they're going to kill him if we don't. Yeah, that didn't move the needle that much, Keith. Yeah, same. I thought that would, but no.

No, no. So why did they cut up a bunch of magazines if they signed the letter at the bottom? Well, they are journalists. The only thing keeping print media flowed is cut up glued ransom notes, right? That's fair. You want to get Chinese? Yeah. All right. Me and General So. Hello and welcome to CitationNeeded, the podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on a Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Noah and I'm gonna be leading this cope but to make it work I'm gonna need a few disciples first up the reason the hellbop coming in isn't planning to return visit until the year 4385

Tom and Cecil. Oh, that's a good thing too. I just bought a pair of Nike's but I still have a lot of work to do so thing too, because I just bought a pair of Nike's, but I still have a lot of work to do. So I once went to a poetry reading where the poet screamed hail, bop into the mic for three straight minutes. And I think that's why it's not coming back. I think it's way to arrange so hard. It never is coming back. Yeah. Okay. See, so you went and you said you weren't going to talk about my readings anymore. The show. You said it was good. You said it was good. I never said that. You didn't say it was good. You said it was good. I didn't never said that. You didn't say it was bad. You were saying it was bad. Agreed. We agreed with you. Would you set it? And also joining us tonight, the guy who you can always count on to spiked the

poison. Cool. A to Heath and right. Shot, shot, shot, shot. Let's do this. Yeager bombs. And of course, Eli can't be here tonight. He's been a physical and emotional rec since he found out that you weren't a patron yet. If you'd like to learn how to nurse him back to health, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Cecil, what person placed in concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? The Symbianese Liberation Army. And Tom, you read the article while googling how to get away with transporting pipe bombs

for completely benign reasons. Are you ready to tell us the tale? I am. No, let's do this thing. All right. So what drew you into this topic? Well, you know, I was originally going to write this essay about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and I've promised that I will get to that.

It is a great story. It's actually worthy of more time and attention than I'm going to be able to give it tonight. But as I began to read about the kidnapping, I realized that actually the craziest story I've probably ever read ends with the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, but absolutely begins much earlier. And that the backstory to that kidnapping is actually so much more interesting than I could have ever imagined. There will be sex and cyanide tipped bullets. There will be incompetent cops and misguided theater kids on a rampage. There will be intrigue and stupidity and quanza. This is going to

be amazing. Wood, are we finally doing citation needed the musical? Is that what you're describing? Oh, on a week when he lies down here too, that'll be great. The story of the Symbini's liberation army or SLA is really the story of Donald DeFries, who was the cult leader that began this whole crazy mess. DeFries was born in Cleveland, Ohio, an auspicious start. In 1943, he was the oldest child among eight siblings, and his home life was to be extremely charitable,

unpleasant. His mother was a nurse at a convalescent home. His father was a violent psychopath, who as a punishment broke both of DeFrieze's arms on three separate occasions. Jesus. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Both his arms as one of the public, it's not like he broke one arm and then broke both his arms three times that happened. So to freeze whose legs remained unscathed, use them to run away from home at the age of 14.

So so his mom worked and lived at a convalescent home. Sorry, guys, Tom left a joke break in the notes right after fled from extreme physical abuse as a child. That's the best I could do. There's the last one in. Everybody else at the club. That spot blank. Now, because it was the 1950s and the world was utterly insane, Wikipedia has this to say

about 14 year old defreases. Next step, quote, he moved to Buffalo, New York, where he lived with the Reverend William L Foster, a fundamentalist minister and his family. And quote, how does a 14 year old kid make his way from Cleveland to Buffalo and then find a minister to take him in? Why does that minister take him in? We will never know because something something, it was the 1950s and kids could basically just hold both their way around the country without that journey meriting more than a throwaway mention. Yeah, kids were kind of like a couch on the side of the road until like 1990. Or like to take a penny, leave a penny thing. It was

simpler times. Yeah. Had to be a long trip. It's two arms and Cassie, basically had to like shout, it's high gang. And like all the passing cars are going by. You get to see my thumb. Had a freeze struggle to adapt and ended up joining a street gang in the city of Buffalo and quickly got into trouble for stealing from parking meters. First the coins and later the whole car in front of the meter. This caused the first of many run-ins with the law.

The freeze was sent to the state reformatory in El Maira, New York. So look this up. State reformatories in the 1950s were basically the worst possible places. They were essentially juvenile prisons, just full of violence and neglect. I would actually go into more details, but imagine, I don't know, a juvenile prison run by the state at a time when a 14 year old kid was of such little value. They could fuck off from Cleveland to Buffalo without anyone noticing something amiss. So the freeze state at the reformatory

until he turned 18, at which time the state was done with him and he was released, which sounds good at first, but consider this. He hadn't been properly educated. The prison where he had spent the last four years was in his words, full of, quote, nothing but fear and hate day in and day out." And now, public school be that much different. Now, released at the age of 18, he was literally just turned out into the world with nothing. He had no case worker, no job prospects, no money, no belongings at all of any kind and no education. This state literally walked him to the front door and then shut that door behind him and washed their hands of him. I'm not saying any of this should

offer an excuse for his later behavior, but I am saying that some shit is absolutely predictable. Yeah, you know what they say? Juvean Buffalo, Sinai bullets or Jive islands with the cast of fame. Quanza marks a stormy. It's a serious story. And now we know that everybody does different times. We have common core math. It's different. The de Fris that made his way from El Maira to Newark. And there he met Gloria Thomas whom he married in 1963. Gloria had three kids at the time

she married to freeze and she had three more with the freeze. But things were not good. But, don't you mean they're for? I do as a matter of fact, please hold. Gloria had three kids at the time she married to freeze and she had three more with the Freeze. Therefore, things were not good. Hence from experience, I can tell you. Here's a story of a man named Tommy. A dial to Freeze chafed at family life and he tried on many occasions to just call a mulligan on that shit and leave. In 1964, he left his family until Gloria had him arrested for desertion.

The pair of reconciled moved to LA, but the freeze still struggled, saying, quote, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was slowly becoming a nothing. End of quote. You could just get arrested for deserting your wife and kids. Men bears such an unfair burden in child wearing a ridiculous. Oh, I keep you cum sprinkler. Whatever. I'm sure those court ordered commitments worked out great for the women of the early 60s. Yeah.

Jesus Christ. So the freeze left again. This time instead of being arrested for desertion, defrees was stopped by the police. As he walked down the sand burner, you know, freeway. That's the two 12 try to hitchhike his ass away from his wife and six kids. When the police stopped him and searched him, he had a suitcase in which the cops found a few normal suitcase type things, but also a sought-off rifle, a butter knife. He had sharpened into a chive, oh, and a tear gas pencil bomb, which is basically a pipe bomb with a timer on it. This was in his suitcase. And the police just let him go. And he eventually wandered

back home to his family. And I was there. I'm just trying to kill an ostrich in the desert as I'm like, this is a little sick. I mean, he's out of prison now. Like, he could just have a real night. He doesn't need to sharpen a fucking spoon. I don't know. I don't know. He's in this. Maybe he's frugal. No, I guess he's sharpening the butter knife with another knife. I guess I just already had in 1965 back at his family home.

DeFrees was arrested for shooting a gun in his basement. She made most incredible by the existence of a basement in Los Angeles. And when he was asked why he was playing range master in the basement of his home, DeFrees offered this little gem, quote, I started playing with guns and fireworks, just anything to get away from life and how unhappy I was. End quote. The charges were dropped. He starts acting like the world's shittiest downstairs

neighbor and helps his wife will just kick him out. A two years later, the police stopped to freeze while he was riding his bicycle. They stopped him because he ran a red light. Oh, and also because in the basket of his bike, he had a goddamn pipe bomb sticking up out of a basket. What? He was just riding around the neighborhood with a bomb in like that little old lady farmer's market basket. And with a cop searchdom, he had another bomb secret away

in one of his pockets along with a pistol. So to freeze was given three years of probation. Realization. God says, is that a baguette with a bump stock coming out of your former partner? Yeah, what are you going to do? You just can't. It's cool. Now, you might think that the second time that someone gets caught with bombs and guns

walking about the neighborhood and they've been shooting shit in their basement and saying dark emo shit, they might warrant more than a touch of probation. The probation officer actually agreed with me here, noting that they were quote, deeply troubled and quote by defrease. A report at the time described Donald is having quote, a fascination with firearms and explosives, and quote, psychiatric recommendations at the time recommended he'd be jailed, calling him dangerous. DeFrees was instead given an additional five years of probation. So now while he was on probation, DeFreeze,

and an accomplice kidnapped the caretaker of a synagogue for literally no reason at all. They acknowledged that they had no motive for this crime. They just decided to kidnap some guy. DeFreeze was arrested, which was obviously then a violation of his probation. And he was returned very briefly to jail. The prosecutor in the kidnap in case dropped the charges and see figured to freeze was already in jail. But this is called the synagogue with that voice modulated thing. We'll bring him back when we get bored. We didn't we didn't really think through We're going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going

to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going 69 police in Cleveland caught de frees on the roof of a bank, which is not where people usually hang out. When he was searched, de frees had a lockpicking kit, two pistols, a dagger, and a goddamn hand grenade.

He was, of course, arrested, but bail was set at only $5,000, which startled, easily paid with money. He later admitted he had stolen. Well, he's certainly making up for a childhood on arm. That's for sure. Off this knife game, quite a bit too.

Yeah. But why would he be on the fucking roof? Right? I've just had, I've been thinking about this all night. Did you think there's like be a roof door that he could pick the lock? God was he planted to explode his way in with the grenade? Could he think of no less suspicious of place to hide until night? I just I feel like maybe this plan was doomed from the start like the synagogue.

God, right? Maybe he had a maybe had twos and one blew him up there. Now, how do I get down? Goddamn it. A month, one month later, DeFrees got into a shootout with the police. And he was again arrested, though the charges he faced somehow didn't relate to the open air gun battle with the cops, but for the stolen cashier's check, he had tried to cash after taking it from a prostitute. He had just beaten.

He was convicted of the theft of the cashier's check and sent to Vacaville prison. Some John starts pulling on his wallet. Sorry, babe. I only take wire transfers and fucking cash. Yes, checks. You take dogecoin. Fucking no. It was at this prison that the seeds for the Symbianese liberation army would germinate in In prison to freeze, joined the Black Cultural Association. And the BCA was connected to the University of California at Berkeley, and students from Berkeley routinely met with prisoners to assist them with their education. And since they were Berkeley students in the late 1960s to engage the prisoners in lengthy discussions about far left politics. Though as we'll see later, it's unclear exactly what politics to freeze actually held.

Okay, the most surprising detail is that defrease was black. Like I didn't catch that all the absurdly lax policing made perfect sense until just now. And I was like, okay, that's insane. I had to erase several jokes from the notes when I reached this part of the essay. Yeah. Eventually, DeFrees left the Black Cultural Association and he formed his own group. He called Unisite. Members included two white guys from Berkeley and a former Black Panther. This group now beginning to coalesce

around DeFrees was the genesis for the Symbini's liberation army with only one problem. Defree's was still in jail, but he had an idea. First, I climb up on the roof. Not even that complicated. Defree's idea was to not be in jail anymore. I don't want to over complicate this guy. This guy is not playing for D. chess. Instead, he was transferred from Vacaville to Soledad prison in 1972. And Soledad had a program that allowed prisoners to work off site. And off site sounded way better than on site when on site is prison.

It says that the freeze escaped from solar dead, but he escaped the same way a thousand like shitty stepdads escape. He just went to work one day and kept on walking. That was the escape, the guy with the bombs and the guns and the hand grenade and the shoot out with the police. He escaped prison by just not going back to the prison after his shift repairing a boiler. That's it. That was the escape. You all think maybe Andy Dufrey was just really into crawling through poop?

So it makes makes for a very different ending to that story. A Donald made his way then to Oakland where he was hidden from the keystone cops that lazily sort of policed the country in the 1970s. It was in Oakland that the Symbini's liberation army was formally begun. All right. Well, we've made it all the way around to the topic that this episode is named after. So I guess that means it's time for a brief and a little apropos of nothing. All right gentlemen take your seats.

Welcome to the second and final day of 1960s police academy now pay close attention because the stuff we are going to disinterestedly skim today Might just save your life and the lives of others sir Yeah Anyway, who can tell me to the first rule of policing that we learned yesterday? Oh, oh, oh, don't create extra paperwork. Ah, that's right. Yes, arresting people, paperwork, looking the other way. No paperwork.

It's really that simple. All right, so with that in mind, imagine you pull someone over and you discover that they are carrying a pipe bomb. What should you assume? Uh, Martin, uh, that it's for defensive purposes only. Hey, sure. Yeah, that would work.

Still illegal to have though, so you could do better. Let's try it. Ricky, um, uh, that it's, uh, Madel candle. Madel candle. Yes. Exactly. Ha, all right. And Dave, let's say that same suspect has a butter knife sharpened up like a scalpel,

you know? Oh, uh, he, uh, probably just keeps his butter frozen. Ah, yes. There. See, frozen butter. Very good. All frozen. Ah, yes. There. See, frozen butter. Very good. All right. One last question.

Steve, you get into a shootout with a suspect. You arrest that person unless, uh, oh, unless they win, they win. That's right. Yes. All right. Well, it sounds like you guys are ready to serve and protect. All right. So pick up your badges and the way out. Remember when you hear the screams of children from the other room, just take comfort in the fact that it ain't you.

And we're back when we last left off. DeFrees was not the droid the cops were looking for apparently. So he decided to raise an army. Tom, how does that work out for everybody? Hi, so if you're like me, when you first heard of the Symbini's liberation army, you might have thought, wait, who are the Symbianese? And are they doing the liberating or do they need to be liberated? And how do I not know about the plight of the poor Symbianese?

Don't feel bad. Like God or successful MLM boss babes, there is no such thing as a Symbiannesian. There is no place known as Symbionia, and there is no need to be concerned about the freedom of these Symbianes. The word is totally made up. According to the freeze, quote, the name of Symbianes is taken from the word symbiosis, and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interests of all within the body. And quote, I just hope that clears things up for you guys. So what the freezes really advocating was that the SLA be the unifying theory and force

that would like Voltron together, all other leftist ideologies and goals. The SLA would be the thing that brought together anti-racist, anti-capitalist and feminist struggles. To freeze really believed, or I mean, at least he sold it pretty hard, that the SLA would be the thing that sparked the revolution that combined these forces into an unstoppable leftist juggernaut. Okay, if this turns out to be the Bernie Sanders origin story, I'm going to be really fucking happy. I love Bernie Sanders. So a bit bit of a spoiler, but yeah, no, it turns out that DeFris is actually Bernie's left leg. All right, good Voltron, good Volta on everybody. You guys go to robberies and kidnappings. I'll get ignored in the Senate for 40 years. Cause America is toxic health scape. Great. I'm way too ahead of my time.

Of course, any hyper militant ideological cult needs a good symbol, but the freeze wasn't a graphic designer and nobody was willing to work on spec. So instead, he just appropriated on spec. So instead, he just appropriated Kwanzaa. For real, he adopted for the SLA a symbol of a seven headed Hydra with each head representing one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. You know what I mean? The first to say their logo looks like one of those stretchy sticky hands made out of goo that you Yeah, it does. It does. That's exactly what it does. It's all covered. Carpet was so. Yeah. Right. Got the 80s when here kid have a disease vector was enough to sustain the bending industry

for three fucking years. Oh, they were so gross. Of course, DeFrees was going to need a cooler name than Donald. If he was going to start a cooler name than Donald, if he was going to start a quanza based leftist terrorist organization. So he took up the moniker of Field Marshal Sinkiew. You're welcome. A Sink egg was based off the purported name of the leader of the slave rebellion from

to take over of the slave ship Amistad. Okay. Well, pronounced it gets Sinkiew actually makes a lot of sense. Homestod. Okay, well, pronouncing it sink you actually. He then took the surname of Matume, the Swahili word for profit. She's like pretty low key humble kind of stuff. Okay, sink you, Matume sounds good, but the field martial part is going to scare me. Field martial. Field martial. Seek you a tune. There you go. Jimmy Carter.

Yeah. Like you do. Donald. His name is Donald. No domestic terror cult is complete without its followers. So let's talk about the SLA members at this point. The first founding member was Patricia Sultiska. Sisk.

I probably mispronounced that. She actually owned the safe house in Oakland that defrees fled to after his daring mosey away from prison. Now, she and defrees hit it off. They became lovers and together they created the first SLA literature, two of the Berkeley students, theater majors, by the way, who had met with defrees in prison, Willie Wolf and Russ Little also met up with defrees to start the SLA. And by the end of that summer, the SLA had also recruited Joe Romero, a Vietnam veteran activist. The Symbi Nees Liberation Army now had members

about five or so. Almost one for each head of the Hydra. So, yeah, pretty good. But plenty to start a podcast though. But they didn't have a clear focus or goal. All the more reason to make a podcast. Until that is they heard about Marcus Foster. Marcus Foster appears maybe at first glance and unlikely target for the SLA. Marcus Foster was not, say, a right-wing warmonger.

Marcus Foster was, instead, the first black school superintendent in Oakland. But Marcus made the mistake of introducing a plan to give students school ID cards. Wow. And that, that the SLA could not abide. Oh, that was the whole thing. That's it. Literally all of it. They just wanted to give them school IDs. And this was unacceptable because of fascism for something along those lines. It's not any clearer than that. No matter which article you read about this, I promise. Okay. This feels like just a pet peeve of one of the Berkeley kids, right? He's like, all right. Let's dismantle capitalism. Sure. But first, here's the thing, I keep forgetting to bring my student ID to the library and a kitchen. I have to walk

back through the quad and then back in my dorms. It's okay. But after then with the proletariat can rise up after that, but we got to do the ID card thing. So seriously, the SLA launched a plan to fucking murder Marcus Foster for trying to give kids student IDs a plan by the way that Foster actually withdrew his support for, but details. So members of the SLA surprise foster and Robert Blackburn as they were leaving a school board meeting. Foster was shot with hollow point bullets whose hollow spots had been packed with cyanide to make what's super duper sure that foster would not survive. And he very much did not. Blackburn, Foster's deputy was shot with a shotgun and grievously wounded for, I guess,

being next to a guy who had at one time briefly supported school IDs for kids. Okay. Let's check to see if I have everything for the assassination. Sionite bullets, Mercury, TIP Bay, and that almost forgot my botulism, grenade. Man, it's all over the building. A fucking bullet. Just like poisoning the bullet is like spiking the alcohol, dude. You're just making work for yourself. The SLA was, if nothing else, spectacularly well armed, even though they weren't all

that bright. See, that should be the motto on our money. Right. I mean, they had lots and lots of guns, guys. Many of them, they modified to make them fully automatic, or they saw them down to make high power weapons more easily concealed, but concealment was weirdly not a strong suit of the SLA because while riding in a van that had literally had crates full of guns in it. Two members of the SLA, Joseph Romero and Russell Little were pulled over and with a cop saw the not at all covered

or concealed crates of guns in the van. He drew his weapon and a shootout occurred. Now amazingly neither the cop nor the SLA members were actually hit, but Romero and little were arrested and the gun that Romero had used to shoot at the cop was actually the same gun that was used in the murder of Marcus Foster. Romero and little were arrested and convicted for the murder since they had shot at a cop with the fucking murder weapon. But here's the rub. They didn't actually kill Marcus Foster. Foster was in fact murdered by Patricia and DeFries, who shot Blackburn.

Well, I give it, we know so far they're both going to get off with no G's anyway. So why should that matter? So now with two of their own in prison and the wrong two at that, the SLA lunatics were pretty pissed off. They began planning both their revenge and their master plan. And they wrote those plans down and had pictures and like evil doer planning stuff. And they had all this stuff at one of their safe houses when that got tipped off and they had to leave their safe house and move. And the idiot S. S. L. E. Schmuck's poured

20 gallons of gasoline all over the interior of the safe house and then lit a fire. Guys, what the fuck are you doing? The planning stuff, it's illegal pad and a napkin. I'm only getting in my hand, right? And you're setting a house on fire. Oh my God. All right, I'm going to leave it here, I guess. I don't know.

So the thing is that after they set the fire, they buttoned up and locked the house down before leaving, which means that the fire raged until it ran out of oxygen from all the closed doors and windows. And then it just kind of sputtered out. The FBI raided the house and found documents, including pictures of petty Hearst and a plan of action to be taken quote for the full moon on January 17th and quote. And naturally, the FBI did not warn Petty or anyone in the Hearst family. To be fair to the FBI, the SLA did not strike on January 17th, but instead waited until February 4th to kidnap the publishing Ares.

But Ares is actually a bit much here. Petty Hearst was not like first in line to the Hurst fortune with her own diamond coated rose butter or anything. She actually lived in a shitty part of town with her fiance, a math teacher, the math teacher, by the way, they got together when she was his 16 year old student and he was her 23 year old teacher. So patty had a stipend, but she was very far from rich and her fiance had pretty much no money at all. Okay, but where did he stand on school IDs? The SLA didn't know any of this. They thought that Patty Hurst as a member of the publishing

powerhouse family was just scrooge McDucken at all day in a vault of gold coins. She also seemed a good symbol for the excess of the wealthy oligarchy that the SLA was kind of slobbily opposed to. On the 4th of February, the SLA knocked on Patty's door and asked to use the phone before forcing their way into the apartment. They proceeded then to brutally beat Patty's fiancé while demanding to know where the safe was located. If only one of them had thought to tell the freeze it was on the roof, right? Of course, there was no safe because anyone with a safe full of money wouldn't dream

of living in the shit neighborhood that Patty and her creepy math teacher, fiance, lived in. Okay, regardless of the neighborhood, what would they picturing happened? Like, all right, Patty, you're an adult now. We're a giant rich family. Here's a credit card for emergencies and five bars of gold. Bullion. Don't spend it on. And then when it turned out that that's obviously dumb and not what happened, the SLA just, they just did like a like a yes and kidnapping on the spot. Well, they were undeterred by that reality, heath, and they continued to pummel fiance Stephen weed, breaking several of his ribs and other bones while other SLA members have

scondered with patty. Kind of. Let me, let me set the scene for you guys. Steven is being beaten to a pulp, but somehow manages to get up and run bloody and with his hands tied out of the apartment faster than Josh Holly running away from protesters. He tuned up. I imagine. Fuck that guy so hard. The SLA guys throw hers over their shoulder and they run out to the getaway car and they go to throw her in the trunk, but the trunk accidentally closes. So they have to put herst down and then fish the keys out of their pockets and then patty fucking bolts.

Well, patty's hands are tied and her legs are tied and she's blindfolded. So she just runs face first into her own garage door. She's crud. They couldn't not have stopped and had to laugh for a while. A meanwhile, Steven has made his way to the front door of his neighbor, but he's been beaten so badly. He can't speak. And the neighbors don't recognize him. So then they just don't let him in.

Patty is just scooped back up, thrown in the trunk and the SLA guys spray the apartment building with automatic gunfire like for safe measure before driving off gasoline guy from before just lights the getaway car on fire. Fuck, sorry. I paid it. I thought I had books in here or something. Except then they get pulled over for a broken tail light, just a few blocks away. And they've got her in the trunk, but as the cop is talking to them, he gets a call

that there were gunshots. So the cop lets the SLA guys go so we can race to the scene of the crime committed by the guys. He literally just let go. And so they go. Deleted it. It's faded black. That's it.

Right there. They just fade it perfectly to black. All right. So now the SLA has Hurst, but they did not actually have a plan. They knew they wanted a prisoner exchange Hurst for their two guys, but they weren't sure exactly how that should be done or what else to ask for. So they didn't really shit for three days. No ransom, nothing. They blindfolded Hurst and confined her to a closet until they hatched the next part of their scheme.

Okay, so the whole plan was, all right, she probably has a pile of gold like a dragon from end of plan. Yeah, we're running down. That's the legal path. Can someone shaker? See if the gold just falls out. So firstly demanded that they would release Hurst if the state would release from Miro and little, but that was just a non-starter. So they'd go back to the drawing board. They then asked for a ransom to be paid in the form of a food distribution plan for the poor. And even that plan was not really very well thought out. The value of that ransom ranged from $4 million up to $400 million, depending on when they asked. And to be fair to the ranges for ransoms, did you just have to keep asking for different shit? And it was just fucking bonkers. Okay. And to be fair to the SLA, this food was sorely

needed because our country does pretty much nothing or less in terms of taking care of its neediest citizens. In fact, the food distribution that they did do at one point had to be stopped because so many people showed up for the food that violence in the crowd erupted among the hungry. Just back on the voice modular call. Okay, that was like one day of food. Teach all the poor people to fish. Maybe meanwhile, patty is captive in a closet in a safe house, and she has kept blindfolded for days after she was first kidnapped. She refused to eat afraid she'd be poisoned. No, they need the poison for their bullets. Let me come. Her captors fucked with her constantly, only letting her take the blindfold off to watch or read coverage

of her own kidnapping. And as time wore on, they worked to convince Patti that her family had refused to pay what was demanded, though that was not strictly speaking true. Patti's father actually used all of his available assets to try to pay the ransom. And when he ran out of his own money, he went to the family's board of directors to beg for more. And it was the board of directors who refused to provide additional funds. Nevertheless, the SLA convinced Patty that her family had chosen money over her freedom.

She was completely isolated. She was held captive for months. She was fed a steady diet of propaganda. She had seen her fiance beaten nearly to death and was terrified not to cooperate or play along with her captors. Eventually, she was taught to assemble and disassemble shotguns blindfolded and to recite SLA literature verbatim. As Patty spoke about SLA ideology, she was being taped.

They did end up making a podcast. I'd rather be a happy ending in your somewhere. That's so nice. Afraid for her life, Patty Hurst plated her captors and denounced her life, Petty Hurst, placated her captors and denounced her family, her former life, and her fiance. She took her SLA name, Tanya, after an associate of Sheguovara. On one taped communication, Hurst has given the option of leaving or joining the SLA, and she emphatically agrees to join. She later, and I think obviously, credibly claims that she did not believe that she would really be let loose and that she would have been murdered

if she didn't agree to join the SLA. Look, Patty, one of the heads of our hydras in jail, so we need a new number six. What do you say? You could be on the podcast of the SLA, Choppos Safehouse. Everything in their podcast. The SLA needed to show off their new recruit, to show the world that they had converted this powerful capitalist ares to their claws. So on April 15th, 1974, the SLA with Hurst robbed the hibernia bank in San Francisco. Famously Hurst is seen in video armed and very much engaged in that robbery. The SLA stole 10 grand and shot two civilians, but the real point of the whole enterprise was to showcase their true conquest, Patty Hurst, AKA Tanya. Okay, I feel like that's the opposite of what they should have done at their back on the phone again with the modular. Okay, you're saying

we lowered the ransom value. Just now fuck. All right, you know, we're going to get a kid from Berkeley from the math department instead of theater. We're going to call you back. Thought you know, a math guy. So all of them are obviously incompetent knitwits with no real plan and no real ideology that makes any coherent sense. And so they went shopping. Yeah, I feel like having an extra 10 grand was at least part of the point though, right? On May 16th, 1974, two SLA members, William and Emily Harris went to Mel's sporting goods in Los Angeles for supplies. And just like, on a lark, William decided to shoplift and was caught by a security guard.

William pulled out a revolver to shoot the guard, but the guard knocked the gun out of William's hand and put a handcuff on him. At this point, Hurst, who was in the van across the street, she saw the commotion and she started shooting at the street. She saw the commotion and she started shooting at the store. The Harris is use that as a cover to run and drive away with Hurst at the wheel. Little did they know they were cyanide handcuffs. Now the trio abandoned the van, but the van had a parking ticket in it that the police were able to use to identify the group's safe house.

But the news had picked up the story and the SLA literally found out the cops were on their way to their safe house on the news. Oh, Jesus. And so they fled. No gasoline, Dave. No, they took over a new house, but an anonymous call to the police tipped them to the SLA's location. The Harris's and Hurst didn't head back to the safe house, but instead fucked

off to a hotel in Anaheim to lay low. Yeah, we get afforded to draw attention to ourselves guys. So only one creative guns per van from here on out, okay? We're strict now. Or 100 LAPD officers, along with SWAT teams, surrounded the residential house and ordered anyone inside to come out. An old man and a kid walked out and the old man tried to pretend that there was no one else in the house, but the kid was all like, yeah, there are. There's like a whole bunch of them. They have like a million guns. What the fuck are you talking about?

One guy keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps, he keeps no sense. I don't know. Get him out of there. The cops got tired of waiting and basically all hell broke loose. First, the cops started shooting tear gas into the house, but then the SLA began shooting bullets out of the house. And then the cops started shooting their bullets into the house. Yeah. So the SLA started throwing homemade grenades and the police responded with Waco brand tear gas that caught the house on fire. The first two to leave were two women who had nothing to do with anything, except to have passed out drunk in the worst house imaginable the night before. They weren't shot by anyone. And that is kind of a miracle.

Yeah, the Swat team was chewed out for that. Wow. Let's just a good sign that the SLA guys were lobbing homemade grenades into a residential area responsible. That's important. The next part is a little controversial, but basically everyone died. Some people argue that two of the women SLA members were gunned down by the cops as they tried to flee the burning building, But the cops say that the women were shooting as they left the house and were shot in return. Now, since there are no body cams, it's probably wise to err on the side of the most likely

possibility and thus conclude that the cops shot them as they were trying to surrender unarmed. To freeze, the leader of this whole mess committed suicide in the house and the SLA was no more thousands of rounds of high power ammunition had been fired into and out of the SLA safe house in the siege of the four thousand rounds fired by the SLA, not a single bullet struck anyone, not one. And the one he shot himself with. Well, okay, yeah, out of the house, the bullets out of the house. And the entire thing had been broadcast live on television.

So the Harris's and Hurst watched the footage live from their hotel rooms. Stormtrooper watching with his wife. See, it's harder than people think they may have. We saw. Patty Hurst was herself captured on September 18, 1975, along with the Harrises and a couple of nobody's. Hurst has always claimed that her involvement with the SLA was involuntary, that she was drugged, coerced, and brainwashed into complying with, and acting as a member of the terrorist cult. But because

we are a cruel and punitive society, Hurst was convicted of the hibernia bank robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison, rather than given counseling for being kidnapped by a terrorist organization. After 21 months, former president and all around good guy Jimmy Carter commuter sentence and Bill Clinton later formally pardoned Patricia Hearst. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be, Tom? Don't join the SLA. Oh, interesting. Yeah. That would have said for a lot of trouble. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. Now are you ready for the question? Let's do it. All right, Tom, which are the following things are true about Patty Hearst that we didn't talk about? A her

shitsu named rocket, her French bulldog named tuggy and her other French bulldog named Ruby have all won awards at the West Winstonster Kennel Club dog show. What Madison Square Garden in New York? B, she was given a stone trinket by one of the men in the liberation army. And during her trial, the prosecution pointed out that she didn't destroy it or throw it away. And therefore it was a consensual relationship that she was having with a kid. Oh my God. That is definitely true.

Okay. See, everyone involved in the prosecution should get kidnapped and forced to learn about Stockholm syndrome until they have Stockholm syndrome. And then Patty Hurst gets to make them all do, I don't know, one ridiculous favor anything she wants. Something with dog shit. Maybe she has dogs apparently. All right.

Well, A is adorable. So I just know that that's true. That speaks to your heart, Heath. And B is America and C is your, that's D, all of the above. I hadn't said that yet, but yes, D, all the above was available. That's correct. Nailed it. All right, I got one for you here, Tom.

Yes. Which of the following are two things about Donald DeFries that we didn't talk about? A, his first shootout started out over a misunderstanding about what a cop meant by disarming him. He'd have a complicate had passed. And that forgot. B, B, his marriage was literally harder to escape than his prison. D, he always made ice-based puns when he fought with Batman. He thought we're a lot like face mites was a great name for his revolutionary gang.

Or E all of the above. Oh gosh, well, I mean, obviously, B, his marriage is literally hard to escape than his prison. That's right. He never did fight Batman. Well done. I thought you, I thought you go to the, I thought I'd get you. We're a lot like face fights, Liberation Army. Tom, what's the film adaptation of this story called goodie? Okay. Hey, lock Stockholm syndrome and two smoking barrels. Be anarchist, kissed bang, bang, see 10 things I liberate about you or D. Proletarians of fire.

Oh, well done, sir. Proletarians of fire is so good, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with a lock stock home syndrome and two smoking girls. Oh, yes. Sure. I mean, why not do honestly on the strength of proletarians of fire alone, you win this week.

Okay, well, then I guess I'll pick Heath. Heath. Alright, well for Cecil Heath and Tom, I'm Noah, thanking you for hanging out with us today. We're gonna be back next week, and by then Heath will be an expert on something else. Between now and then be sure to check out Tom and Eli's new show, Dear Old Dads, because apparently when they do an entire podcast about their kids at Sweet, when I do it, it's creepy. Bullshit, fucking double standard nonsense. Anyway, if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation to patreon.com slash citation pod

or leave a supply star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you