[jackfoxy]

A former Oakland PD officer shared with me insight into how police intelligence worked back in the day. And I'm sure this still goes on.

It was back in the time of the SLA terrorism and Patty Hearst kidnapping. One of the brothers in East Oakland casually mentioned to a cop "What are all these hippies doing in our neighborhood?" (It turns out they were having a strategy meeting.) This got reported up the chain of command and OPD intelligence set up traffic stops all around the neighborhood perimeter. That was it. They just asked for ID of everyone leaving the neighborhood and recorded them, with special interest in anyone White.

When the sh!t hit the fan and the FBI got involved (soon thereafter) the OPD chief told the FBI they knew exactly who was involved. The FBI was dismissive and wasted valuable time. When the FBI hit a blank wall in regards to identifying SLA members they finally swallowed their pride and asked the OPD for the list. That's how the SLA membership was identified.

[echelon_musk]

Anyone unfamiliar with the Patty Hearst kidnapping may want to read the excellent book Days of Rage [0]. I started reading it after it was recommended by another user on this forum a long time ago.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage:_America%27s_Radi...

[TheBlight]

Is it possible this story served as a parallel construction -- like when you don't want to expose your actual sources and methods?

[jackfoxy]

No. There was no reason for this ex-cop to tell me the story 5 years ago about something that happened 45 years earlier. And he didn't make a career as a cop, so he wasn't protecting anyone.

[doktrin]

> It was back in the time of the SLA terrorism and Patty Hearst kidnapping. One of the brothers in East Oakland casually mentioned to a cop "What are all these hippies doing in our neighborhood?" (It turns out they were having a strategy meeting.)

The SLA only had one black member, who at the time was an escaped convict. Why would a half-dozen white hippies, and one black fugitive, leave their safehouse to hold a strategy meeting in East Oakland?

[refurb]

Because they are under the (mostly correct assumption) that poorer neighborhoods (which are often, but not exclusively, minority neighborhoods) have lower police presence.

And also that radical hippies tend not to have a lot of money, so it's not unusual for them to live in low income neighborhoods (i.e. some members likely lived there anyways).

[jackfoxy]

They had not kidnapped Patty at that point. The only thing the SLA was taking credit for at that time was the Marcus Foster murder. They probably thought they had a safe house in east Oakland, which is why all the hippies (as described by the bystander) went there for the meeting.

[spacebacon]

See parallel construction comment above.

[wolverine876]

A bit of a self-satisfied, everyone-else-is-a-fool, told-you-so story for the teller. IME, those are signals that the story reveals the teller, the culture of the teller, but not facts.

Of course, I don't know. I think the hard thing in these situations is that we humans tend to trust personal stories like this one - it's rude not to. My comment is rude, in a sense, transgressing in this social interaction. But the accurate, truthful course is to treat the facts as [edit:] nothing - not as maybe true, etc., but as if they were never said.

[tharmas]

It's a slippery slope. Mussolini defeated the Mafia in southern Italy. However, his gov't did it in a brutal manner. Lots of innocent people rounded up too.

"The hand of Vengeance found the bed To which the Purple Tyrant fled; The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And became a Tyrant in his stead." --The Grey Monk, William Blake

[antoniojtorres]

Why don’t you ask for a source?

[rocqua]

I presume you mean the Symbionese Liberation Army when you say SLA?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army

[Scoundreller]

Probably. But Service Level Agreement Terrorism has a nice ring to it.

[stronglikedan]

They gave some context by specifying "SLA terrorism" up front, so it's a safe presumption.

[pjc50]

> They just asked for ID of everyone leaving the neighborhood and recorded them

Ah, the famous American freedom. Papers please.

(in practice, it's practically impossible to stop law enforcement doing this kind of thing at least some of the time, no matter what country you're in or how unconstitutional it is. There will always be groups with little enough political power that they have no redress)

[ysofunny]

sorry, but the proper american phrase is "license and registration"

[some_random]

While it is practically impossible in cases like this, there's still a huge difference between the US where police will at best begrudgingly acknowledge your rights and most other countries in the world where you do not have rights to begin with.

[refurb]

This is such a lazy reply. Even 10 seconds Googling would tell you Americans don't need to provide ID to the police (unlike other countries) unless you are operating a motor vehicle.

[moffkalast]

Glory to Arstotzka.

[LAC-Tech]

Dirty hippies. Thank god those domestic terrorists were apprehended before they could murder again.

[dang]

Please don't do this here.

You may not owe dirty hippy terrorists better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

[retox]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army

>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.