Just a couple of days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on the release of former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson (Kathleen Soliah). (Olson disappeared in 1975 after two L.A. police cars were bombed. She married a doctor and became a housewife until finally being caught and prosecuted for attempted murder and second-degree murder. By then she had three children.)Then, today, it was reported in the L.A. Times that just as she was about to return home with her husband she was rearrested and told she still had one more year to serve. They'd miscalculated, they said. (Note: blowing up L.A. patrol cars and then going on the lam for two decades does not endear one to the California penal system.)
A few months ago, our friend Tara McKelvey went to Minneapolis and interviewed Olson's daughters about what it was like to discover their mother, a soccer mom, was in fact one of the most wanted women in America. Tara's story for Marie Claire shows how much damage a secret like that can do to a family and to a community. (Earl Balfour, a retired tool-and-dye worker, had the best quote: "I thought, Holy sh*t. Sara Jane. She'd show up at the picnic with the guacamole. Who would have believed it?")
What do you think? Has she paid her debt to society, or was her recent release premature?
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. Why are Ayers and Dorn free to socialize with the Obamas? Didn't they do the same thing, or worse? At least Olson was a cult member and probably brainwashed and didn't know any better. What's Ayers' excuse?
Davidg at 8:37AM on Mar 24th 2008
2. You do the crime, you do the time. So there was an addition error, 1 more year for you.
robert okane at 8:58AM on Mar 24th 2008
3. The SLA, aren't they a flash back to the roaring 70's. I was living in Southern California at the time when the gun battle between the LA Police and the SLA took place. As I recall, Sara Olson and her boy friend (?)were 2 members of the SLA that weren't involved in the battle, but watched it on TV.
Later she was caught trying to blow up LA police cars as revenge for the killings of the SLA members during the gun battle.
I don't know, armed robbery, kidnapping, car theft and trying to blow up police cars seems a bit more than youthful indiscression. I say she goes back for the remaining year.
They'd better get her fast, ole Sara is slippery.
Willet at 9:26AM on Mar 24th 2008
4. So the California authorities allegedly made a mistake? Sorry, guys. Let them prove to the satisfaction of a judge, in a legal, adversary proceeding, that they made such a mistake. THEN re-arrest Ms. Olson. To do otherwise amounts to deprivation of liberty without due process of law. If this precedent is allowed to stand, any parolee or former prisoner may be re-arrested or re-incarcerated solely on the grounds that "the system made a mistake."
Jim G at 11:49AM on Mar 24th 2008
5. I think if California Corrections made a mistake by releasing her one year early, they should pay for it rather than cruelly hauling Olson back in prison. This hurts her family most. Can you imagine picking your mother up at the airport after not seeing her for 7 years and coming home without her?
Travis at 11:00AM on Mar 25th 2008
6. We live in a freakin' police state
Travis at 11:30AM on Mar 25th 2008