Symbionese Liberation Army

Symbionese Liberation Army
Flag/banner of the Symbionese Liberation Army
Also known as	United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army
Leaders	Donald DeFreeze, alias "General Field Marshal Cinque" (died in police shootout May 17, 1974, aged 30), William Harris, alias "General Teko" (captured in 1975)
Dates of operation	1973–1975
Headquarters	San Francisco and Los Angeles
Active regions	California, United States
Ideology	Feminism Anti-racism Anti-capitalism New Left Vanguardism Anti-fascism
Major actions	November 6, 1973: Murder of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster February 4, 1974: kidnapping of Patty Hearst April 15, 1974: Hibernia bank robbery May 16, 1974: Mel's Sporting Goods shot up May 17, 1974: SLA Shootout April 21, 1975: Crocker National Bank robbery
Size	No more than 22

The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (commonly referred to simply as the SLA) was a small, American militant far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and wider American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Six members died in a May 1974 shootout with police in Los Angeles. The three surviving fugitives recruited new members, but nearly all of them were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted.

The pursuit and prosecution of SLA members lasted until 2003, when former member Sara Jane Olson, another fugitive, was convicted in a plea bargain and sentenced for second-degree murder related to a 1975 bank robbery by the SLA in Carmichael, California.^[1][2][3]

During its existence from 1973 to 1975, the group murdered at least two people, committed armed bank robberies, attempted bombings and other violent crimes, including the kidnapping in 1974 of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Its spokesman was escaped convict Donald DeFreeze, but Patricia Soltysik and Nancy Ling Perry were believed to share group leadership.^[4]

In November 1973 the previously unknown SLA assassinated Marcus Foster, the black Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools, and wounded his deputy superintendent Robert Blackburn. This murder alienated the SLA from the local radical community.^[5]

The SLA are widely regarded by American law enforcement as the first domestic terrorist group to rise on the political left.^[6] From the beginning, the small group was made up overwhelmingly of white members. After Thero Wheeler left in October 1973, disagreeing with plans for violence, DeFreeze was the SLA's only black member. Joe Remiro was Chicano, described as white in a February 1974 article in The New York Times.^[2] He had been active for a period in the Latino activist group Venceremos before it disbanded in 1973.