April 15, 1974: What had been a potentially tragic story, the kidnapping of media heiress Patty Hearst, takes a bizarre turn, as she is seen participating in a bank robbery.
Patricia Campbell Hearst, daughter of Randolph Hearst, himself a son of San Francisco media mogul William Randolph Hearst, was studying at the University of California's main campus in Berkeley. On February 4, 16 days before her 20th birthday, she was kidnapped from her apartment, just off campus.
The Symbionese Liberation Army claimed responsibility. The SLA was founded the year before, in San Francisco. Donald DeFreeze, who had escaped from prison after a conviction for robbing a prostitute, wrote their manifesto, claiming, "The name 'symbionese' 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 interest of all within the body."
DeFreeze went on to describe this as "the unity of all left-wing struggles," including feminism, anti-racism, and anti-capitalism. He wanted all races, genders and ages to fight together in a united front, and to live together peacefully. Or so he wrote.
On November 6, 1973, 2 SLA members killed Marcus Foster, superintendent of schools in Oakland, California, and badly wounded his deputy, Robert Blackburn. It seemed to make no sense: Foster was black. But he had a plan to introduce identification cards into Oakland schools, and, to the SLA, this made him a "fascist." He had already dropped the idea, but, apparently, the SLA didn't know that.
SLA members Joseph Remiro and Russell Little were convicted of the murder, but there remains dispute as to who pulled the trigger on both men. If you're thinking this inspired the lyric, "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy," it didn't: Bob Marley had already released that song in February 1973.
The SLA decided to up the ante, by kidnapping an important figure to exchange for their imprisoned members. They chose Patty Hearst because her family was possibly the richest in Northern California. She had been in the news recently, due to her engagement to Steven Weed. The story had been published, complete with her address, in the San Francisco Chronicle -- ironically, the arch-rival of the cornerstone of the Hearst empire, the San Francisco Examiner. And so, on February 4, 1974, she was kidnapped.
The SLA issued an ultimatum to the Hearst family, namely that they would release Patty in exchange for the freedom of Remiro and Little. When such an arrangement proved impossible, the SLA demanded a ransom, in the form of a food distribution program. The value of food to be distributed fluctuated: On February 23, the demand was for $4 million; it peaked at $400 million. (In 2022 money, about $2.3 billion.)
Although free food was distributed, the operation was halted when violence erupted at one of the four distribution points. This happened because the crowds were much greater than expected, and people were injured as panicked workers threw boxes of food off moving trucks into the crowd. After the SLA demanded that a community coalition called the Western Addition Project Area Committee be put in charge of the food distribution, 100,000 bags of groceries were handed out at 16 locations across four counties between February 26 and the end of March.
The SLA claimed they were holding Hearst in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which define the conditions under which prisoners of war can be held. But F. Lee Bailey, then America's most famous defense attorney, would later claim in his defense of Patty that she had been kept in a small closet, drugged, and raped by DeFreeze and another SLA member, Willie Wolfe; and that her seeming to side with the SLA thereafter was attributable to "Stockholm syndrome," a psychological response in which a hostage exhibits apparent loyalty to the abductor.
The SLA needed money. And so, on April 15, they robbed the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank, at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. (It's still a bank, now a Bank of America.) One of the "members" was caught on security cameras yelling, with some hesitation, "I'm Tania. Up, up, up against the wall, motherfuckers!" Two men walked into the bank during the robbery, and were shot and wounded. The robbers got away with over $10,000 (about $58,000 in 2022). "Tania" was identified as Patty Hearst.
The SLA needed more than money. They needed supplies, and they needed support. They weren't getting the support they needed in the San Francisco Bay Area. So they headed south, to Los Angeles. On May 16, William and Emily Harris walked into Mel's Sporting Goods Store in Inglewood. William shoplifted a bandolier. When a security guard confronted him, William pulled a gun. A fight broke out, and Patty, the lookout, shot at the store's sign. Everyone took cover, giving the Harrises the chance to get out and drive off with Patty.
But the Los Angeles Police got a tip as to where the SLA were hiding out, in the Central Alameda section, south of downtown. A 2-hour shootout erupted, and 6 SLA members, including DeFreeze and Wolfe, were dead.
All of this was going on during a lull in the Watergate scandal that ended up forcing the resignation of President Richard Nixon. And the Hibernia Bank robbery too place just 1 week after Hank Aaron had hit his 715th career home run, bringing that engrossing story to an end. So the Hearst/SLA story was in the forefront of the American consciousness for weeks.
The SLA went back to the Bay Area, and laid low for a while. On September 18, 1975, a year and a half after her kidnapping, Patty Hearst was arrested in San Francisco. On March 20, 1976, she was convicted for her role in the Hibernia Bank robbery, and sentenced to 7 years in prison. The Harrises were also convicted and imprisoned. The SLA was effectively ended.
On February 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted Patty's sentence, after just under 2 years. On January 20, 2001, on his last day in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned her. Shortly after her release, she married Bernard Lee Shaw, a policeman who was part of her security detail during her time on bail. (He was not related to author George Bernard Shaw, or journalist Bernard Shaw.)
They lived in Wilton, Connecticut, outside New York, and had 2 daughters. Gillian Hearst-Shaw is active in the publishing industry. Lydia Hearst, using her mother's family name, became a model, an actress, and a lifestyle blogger. Gillian has 3 daughters, while Lydia has 1.
Patty, under her birth name of Patricia Hearst (apparently, she doesn't like "Patty" any more than she likes "Tania"), has written about her experiences, and has also been an actress, having appeared in several films directed by John Waters. She became an activist in the fight against AIDS, and raises dogs, 3 of whom have won prizes at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden.
As of April 15, 2022, Patricia Hearst is still alive, age 68. Her husband died in 2013. William and Emily Harris are also still alive, as are a few other minor members of the SLA.
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April 15, 1974 was a Monday. Tim Thomas, the goaltender for the Boston Bruins' 2011 Stanley Cup win, was born on this day.
There were 7 games played in Major League Baseball, and neither of New York's teams was involved in any of them:
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Joe Coleman outpitched Reggie Cleveland, allowing just 3 hits. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3. So did the Tigers' legend, Al Kaline.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Reggie Smith hit 2 home runs in a losing cause for the Cards, but Lou Brock went 0-for-4. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 6-0 at Atlanta Stadium. (It was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium the next season.) Phil Niekro pitches a 4-hit shutout, striking out 13. Hank Aaron goes 0-for-2 with a walk.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-2 with a walk.
* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-1 at the Astrodome.
* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-1 at Anaheim Stadium. (It was renamed Edison Field in 1998, and Angel Stadium in 2004.) For the Angels, Joe Lahoud hit a home run, and Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI. For the Twins, Rod Carew went 2-for-4 with an RBI, but Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3.
* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Dick Allen hit a home run for the ChiSox, Ray Fosse for the A's. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-5, but had an RBI on a groundout. Gene Tenace singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 14th inning.
The NFL was out of season. There were no games played that day in the NBA, but there were 2 in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 99-80 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 106-102 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. These teams would end up facing each other in the ABA Finals, which the Nets would win.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were played on the day. There was 1 Playoff game in the World Hockey Association: In Game 1 of a Semifinal, the Toronto Toros beat the Cleveland Crusaders, 4-1 at Varsity Arena on the University of Toronto campus.
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