# Does The SLA still exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2008, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803 "2008-07-17T07:27:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/1 "2008-07-17T07:27:46Z")
From [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=475297) does the Symbionese Liberation Army still exist as an organization? [Google](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army) doesn’t seem to shed much light on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/2 "2008-07-17T16:43:07Z")
The Symbionese Liberation Army was never as much an organization as a loose criminal gang headed by Donald DeFreeze, a.k.a. “Field Marshal Cinque Mtume,” with the trappings of revolultionary blah blah. (Despite nominally being a "Black Cultural Association-related group, only DeFreeze was actually black.) The SLA was mostly notable for kidnapping Patty Hearst and holding her ransom for patently absurd demands (to which George Hearst infamously and ineffectually acquiessed), and pretty much came apart at the seams after the disasterous standoff with the LAPD in Central Los Angeles in which DeFreeze and five more of the original members of the SLA died as a result of gunfire or burning. The final “revolutionary” act of the post-DeFreeze SLA was the robbery of a branch of Crocker National Bank in which customer Myrna Opsahl was murdered. Patricia Hearst and Wendy Yoshimura were arrested shortly thereafter, and the group scattered to the winds, becoming a punchline to cultural jokes like the eventually avaricious Ecumenical Liberation Army in the film _Network_ (“You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass! I’m not knockin’ down my goddamn distribution charges!”) until 1999 when athleen Ann Soliah was found living under the alias Sara Jane Olson. Other remaining criminal members of the SLA involved in the Crocker robbery were located and prosecuted at that time. So, no, the SLA no longer exists, if indeed it could ever have been said to truely be an organization in the way the BCA, Venceremos, Students for a Democratic Society, or even the Weatherman Underground were. SLA was essentially a couple of felons and some student radicals/dropouts looking for some action. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/3 "2008-07-17T16:53:48Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] The SLA was mostly notable for kidnapping Patty Hearst and holding her ransom for patently absurd demands (to which George Hearst infamously and ineffectually acquiessed),… [/QUOTE] Er, that should be Randolph Hearst. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/4 "2008-07-17T17:44:39Z")
And I came in here seriously expecting a thread about the Special Libraries Association. (It does still exist.) ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/5 "2008-07-17T18:16:09Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] … the group scattered to the winds, becoming a punchline to cultural jokes like the eventually avaricious Ecumenical Liberation Army in the film _Network_ (“You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass! I’m not knockin’ down my goddamn distribution charges!”) … [/quote] _Man, give her the f—kin’ overhead clause!_ ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/6 "2008-07-17T18:36:01Z")
[QUOTE=Bytegeist] _Man, give her the f—kin’ overhead clause!_ [/QUOTE] _Well Ahmed, you ain’t gonna believe this. They gonna make a TV star out of you. Just like Archie Bunker. You gonna be a household word._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/7 "2008-07-17T18:56:06Z")
[QUOTE=Bytegeist] _Man, give her the f—kin’ overhead clause!_ [/QUOTE] You forgot to fire the .45 first ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2008, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-sla-still-exist/456803/8 "2008-07-17T23:54:38Z")
Thanks **Stranger**.