Defense in ‘70s Bombing Case Says Olson Fled in Fear of Police

If prosecutors dredge up the history of the Symbionese Liberation Army at the trial of 1970s bomb-plot fugitive Sara Jane Olson, the defense will offer its own history lesson--of the Los Angeles Police Department’s violent dealings with the radical group, defense attorneys said in court papers filed this week.

Olson’s attorneys, Shawn S. Chapman and J. Tony Serra, say in the court filings that Olson ran because she feared for her life. The lawyers will ask Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman at a hearing Nov. 10 to compel prosecutors to turn over police reports, autopsy reports, death scene photographs and other records concerning what they call “the May 1974 officer-involved shooting and fire at 1466 East 54th Street.”

Besides LAPD records and a Police Commission report prepared for then-Mayor Tom Bradley, the defense seeks records from a host of law enforcement agencies--including the FBI, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Inglewood police, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the California Highway Patrol, Vernon police and the Secret Service, as well as the Red Cross.

“I am informed and believe that the prosecution may claim that defendant Olson fled because of consciousness of guilt,” Chapman wrote in a declaration to the judge. “The requested evidence may reveal that the persons who were killed at the 54th Street location, including two women who were shot while attempting to leave the burning building, were targeted for death by the LAPD and that the defendant’s flight was a result of fear for her life and not consciousness of guilt.”

Chapman also said in court papers that SLA leader Donald “Cinque” DeFreeze “was at one time an informant for the LAPD,” and that Olson, then known as Kathleen Soliah, was incapable of conspiring with SLA members who held agendas unknown to her.

Olson, a 53-year-old Minnesota housewife, is accused of plotting with SLA survivors to kill LAPD officers to avenge the deaths of six of the radical group’s members in a fiery standoff with police at a house in South-Central Los Angeles in May 1974. The SLA, a small but violent band of revolutionaries, was notorious for kidnapping publishing heiress Patricia Hearst.

Two nail-packed pipe bombs were planted under LAPD squad cars on the night of Aug. 21-22, 1975, but did not detonate. Olson was indicted by the Los Angeles County grand jury in 1976, but eluded capture until last year.

Because former SLA members and associates may be called by both sides at a trial, the defense also has requested arrest reports, rap sheets, intelligence records and other documents relating to 16 people, living and dead.

They are: DeFreeze, Nancy Ling Perry, Camilla Hall, Angela Atwood, William Wolfe, Patricia Soltysik--all dead--and William and Emily Harris, Russell Little, Wendy Yoshimura, Joseph Remiro, Michael and Josephine Bortin, Steve Soliah, James Kilgore and Patricia Hearst.

The defense is appealing Ideman’s decision in January to allow prosecutors to present a history of SLA violence--including crimes that occurred before Olson was affiliated with the group. Two murders, the Hearst kidnapping and a string of bank holdups, bombings and petty crimes have been attributed to the SLA. In some of those cases, no individual has been charged.

“The scope of the trial may exceed anything recorded in the annals of the criminal justice system,” Chapman wrote.

In another motion, the defense seeks information on the two LAPD officers who allegedly were the target of one of the pipe bombs.

In court papers, the lawyers say one of the officers allegedly has been involved in fatal officer-involved shootings of suspects--including one man who injured his police dog and another who killed a police officer.

The other, according to the defense, has filed a lawsuit against Olson, claiming he suffered emotional distress so severe as a result of the bombing attempt that he required medical treatment and had to leave the force because he was so severely disabled “he couldn’t function as a police officer.”

That officer--James Bryan--claimed after 25 years that he now can place Olson at the scene--the parking lot of a Hollywood pancake house--shortly before the bomb was discovered under his patrol car.

“Defendant may show that this remarkable recovery of memory is a fabrication and bears on his credibility as a witness at trial, and therefore she is entitled to discover other instances of dishonesty,” Chapman wrote.

The defense is asking prosecutors to turn over information about the officers’ political affiliations because “it may show that the officers are particularly hostile to defendant because of her alleged political activities.” Chapman said she is seeking to determine whether the officers were linked to a group of right-wing political activists within the LAPD at the time. The group called itself “Western Goals,” court papers said.

“I am informed and believe that this group of officers stole intelligence information from the LAPD’s erstwhile Public Disorder and Intelligence Division and that they maintained the information for their own purposes,” Chapman wrote.

Olson’s trial is scheduled to begin in January. She is free on $1 million bail.