Editing Sara Jane Olson (section)

==Symbionese Liberation Army==
After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in theater, Soliah moved to [[Berkeley, California]], with her boyfriend, [[James Kilgore]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 17, 2009 |title=Olson back home in St. Paul |url=https://www.twincities.com/2009/03/17/olson-back-home-in-st-paul/ |newspaper=[[St. Paul Pioneer Press]] |access-date=April 26, 2022}}</ref>

She met [[Angela Atwood]] at an acting audition where they both won lead roles. They became inseparable during the play's run. Atwood tried to sponsor Soliah as a member of the [[Symbionese Liberation Army]] (SLA), a leftist group she had joined. Soliah, Kilgore, and Soliah's brother Steve and sister Josephine followed the SLA closely without joining.<ref name="LAWeekly3">{{cite news|url=http://www.alternet.org/story/12254|title=The Last Revolutionary: Sara Jane Olson Speaks|first=Greg|last=Goldin|newspaper=LA Weekly|date=January 18, 2002}}</ref>

Atwood and five other core members of the SLA, including leader [[Donald DeFreeze]], were killed in May 1974 during a standoff and shootout with police at a house near [[Watts, Los Angeles]]. They were being pursued for armed robbery of banks, the November 1973 murder of Oakland school superintendent [[Marcus Foster]], and the 1974 kidnapping of heiress [[Patty Hearst]].<ref name="MPR1">{{cite news |url=http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199908/03_zdechlikm_soliah/ |title=The Case Against Kathleen Soliah |publisher=Minnesota Public Radio |date=August 3, 1999 |access-date=July 29, 2015}}</ref>

The Soliahs organized memorial rallies for the SLA victims,<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/tanias-world-the-inside-story-part-two-people-in-need-19751120|title=Tania's World: The Inside Story, Part Two: People in Need|magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=2018-02-02}}</ref> including one in Berkeley's Willard Park (called [[Ho Chi Minh]] park by activists), where Soliah spoke in support of Atwood and was covertly filmed by the [[FBI]].<ref name="MSNBC timeline">{{cite web|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23743392/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080327230820/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23743392/|archive-date=2008-03-27|title=Soliah-Olson timeline: Radical, bank robber, mom, inmate|website=MSNBC}}</ref><ref name="StarTribune">{{cite news |url=http://www.startribune.com/local/16894551.html |title=June 27, 1999: The life and times of Sara Jane Olson |work=Star Tribune |location=Minneapolis |access-date=July 29, 2015}}</ref>

She said that SLA members had been: 
{{blockquote|viciously attacked and murdered by 500 pigs in L.A. while the whole nation watched. Well, I believe that Gelina [Atwood] and her comrades fought until the last minutes, and though I would like to have her with me here right now, I know that she lived happy and she died happy. And in that sense, I'm so very proud of her. SLA soldiers – I know it is not necessary to say; but keep on fighting. I'm with you and we are with you!<ref name="StarTribune"/>}}

Soliah asserted that Atwood "was a truly revolutionary woman ... among the first white women to fight so righteously for their beliefs and to die for what they believed in".<ref name="LAWeekly3"/>

Founding SLA member and fugitive [[Emily Harris (SLA)|Emily Harris]] visited Soliah, who was working at a bookstore. Soliah later recalled, "I was glad she was alive. I expected them to be killed at any time." She felt sorry for the group and agreed to help the remaining members hide from the police and FBI.<ref name="LAWeekly3"/> She assisted them by procuring supplies for their San Francisco hideout, and birth certificates of dead infants that could be reused for false identification.<ref name="LAWeekly3"/>

===Crocker National Bank robbery and Myrna Opsahl murder===
On April 21, 1975, SLA members robbed the [[Crocker National Bank]] in [[Carmichael, California]]. In the process they killed [[Myrna Opsahl]], a mother of four depositing money for her church.<ref name="MPR3">{{cite web|url=http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200201/17_stoltzef_olson/|title=Sara Jane Olson charged with murder|first=Frank|last=Stoltze|website=Minnesota Public Radio|date=January 17, 2002}}</ref><ref name="LAWeekly3"/>

[[Patty Hearst]], who had acted as [[crime scene getaway|getaway driver]] during the crime, later provided the information that led police to implicate the SLA in the robbery and murder.<ref name="MPR3"/> She identified Soliah as one of the robbers.<ref name="MPR3"/> According to Hearst, Soliah kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, leading to her suffering a [[miscarriage]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.postgazette.com/columnists/20010310roddy.asp|title=Payback from a long-forgotten account|first=Dennis|last=Roddy|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=March 10, 2001}}</ref>

Police later searched Soliah's room at the SLA safehouse on Precita Avenue in San Francisco. They found several rounds of 9&nbsp;mm ammunition on the floor and in a 9&nbsp;mm [[Browning Hi-Power]] [[semi-automatic pistol]] in Soliah's dresser drawer. Manufacturing marks appeared to match similar cartridges found in Opsahl's body during the autopsy.<ref name="MPR4"/><ref name="LAWeekly3"/> In 2002, new [[forensics]] technology allowed police to link these shells definitively to those found at Crocker Bank; they charged former members of SLA, including Soliah, with the crime.<ref name="MPR3"/> Prosecutor Michael Latin said that Soliah was tied to the crime through fingerprints, a palm print, and handwriting evidence.<ref name="LAWeekly3"/> The palm print was found on a garage door where the SLA kept a getaway car.<ref name="foxnews">{{cite web|url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/ex-fugitive-sara-jane-olson-gets-20-years-to-life-for-1975-bomb-plot|title=Ex-Fugitive Sara Jane Olson Gets 20 Years to Life for 1975 Bomb Plot|website=Fox News|date=January 18, 2002}}</ref>

===Los Angeles Police Department bombs===
On August 21, 1975, a bomb that came close to detonating was discovered where a [[Los Angeles Police Department]] patrol car had been parked earlier in front of an [[International House of Pancakes]] restaurant.<ref name="MPR1"/> After the bomb was discovered, all Los Angeles police were ordered to search under their cars and another bomb was found in front of a police station about a mile away.<ref name="MPR1"/> Soliah was accused of planting the bombs in an attempt to avenge the SLA members who had died in 1974 in the shootout with LA police.<ref name="MPR1"/>

The [[pipe bomb]]s were rigged to detonate as the patrol cars drove away. One police officer present that day described the first bomb as one of "the most dangerous pipe bombs he had ever seen" and said: 
{{blockquote|This device was designed to go off when that car was moved, and the only way you move a car is to get in and drive it. This bomb wasn't directed against property. It wasn't directed against the car. You could have thrown a device under the car and lit a fuse and then ran. It was directed at whoever got in the car and moved it, however, it would have also taken out anybody in the vicinity.<ref name="MPR1"/>}}

Soliah and five other SLA members were indicted in 1976 for setting the police bombs. She vanished before the trial could start.<ref name="MPR1"/> When Soliah was brought to trial at the turn of the century, prosecutors did not believe the evidence against her was a "slam dunk" but did believe it was enough to convince a jury of her guilt.<ref name="MPR1"/> Two witnesses who testified in the 1976 grand jury indictment had died by the time Soliah (now known as Sara Jane Olson) was tried. At the grand jury, a plumber who had sold materials used in the bomb had picked Soliah out of a lineup as one of the buyers. A bomb expert had said the explosive could have been built in Soliah's apartment. Police could not identify any fingerprints on the devices other than those of the officers who had disarmed them.<ref name="MPR1"/> But Soliah's fingerprint, handwriting, and signature were identified on a letter sent to order a fuse that could only be used for bomb-making. Components matching those used in the police car bombs were found in a locked closet at the Precita Avenue house where Soliah lived with the other remaining members of the SLA.<ref name="LAWeekly3"/>