An exhibit detailing the decades long investigation of the crimes committed by the Symbionese Liberation Army at the Los Angeles Police Historical Society at 6045 York Blvd. in Los Angeles. (Hans Gutknecht / Staff Photographer)
Their violent acts riveted the world in the 1970s as they robbed, murdered and kidnapped from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles.
Now, items that the Symbionese Liberation Army used in a fruitless bid to spur a social revolution, including weapons and bomb parts, will be on display for the first time in a permanent museum exhibit unveiled Wednesday at the Los Angeles Police Historical Society.
"It's a case of enduring interest," said Glynn Martin, executive director of the historical society. "And we have some unique stuff to share with the public."
The exhibit focuses on three parts of the SLA's history: its formation and background in the Bay Area, the shootout between the SLA and the Los Angeles Police Department, and the flight and capture of its members.
Before the SLA moved to L.A., its members assassinated schools Superintendent Marcus Foster as he left a school board meeting in Oakland for his plan to introduce identification cards into schools.
Wanted posters are displayed at the exhibit detailing the decades-long investigation of the crimes committed by the Symbionese Liberation Army at the Los Angeles Police Historical Society at 6045 York Blvd. in Los Angeles. (Hans Gutknecht / Staff Photographer)
But most famously, the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst, heiress to the Hearst publishing empire, on Feb. 4, 1974, in an attempt to exchange her for captured SLA members.
However, Hearst later joined the cause, renounced all family ties, and was caught in an iconic image that showed her wielding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling at customers as she robbed a San Francisco bank.
Although Hearst followed the SLA to L.A., she was not involved in the May 17, 1974, shootout that involved hundreds of LAPD officers and federal and state authorities.
Several heavily armed SLA members had holed up in a house in the 1400 block of East 54th Street during the shootout, which was broadcast live on national television. The house caught on fire hours later and burned down around the members, who were later found dead in a crawl space.
More than 9,000 rounds of ammunition were believed to have been discharged in the gunbattle.
"It's the largest such engagement in American law enforcement agency history," Martin said.
The exhibit includes six guns recovered from the fire, as well as one of the guns that SWAT officers carried that day. A suitcase with several gas masks left behind when they fled another safe house earlier that day will also be on display.
Components of the actual bomb that failed to detonate during an attempt to blow up two LAPD patrol cars in 1975 also can be seen.
Wanted poster for Symbionese Liberation Army Leader Donald DeFreeze at the exhibit. (Hans Gutknecht / Staff Photographer)
"(These are) fascinating, unique artifacts," Martin said.
SLA members returned to the Bay Area following the shootout, and others fled the country. The third part of the exhibit details the search for the fugitive members, some of whom evaded capture for decades, and their ultimate prosecution.
Hearst was convicted of that robbery two years later and sentenced to 35 years in prison despite her claims that she was on LSD and forced to participate.
Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter after serving 22 months, and she was later fully pardoned by President Bill Clinton.
At least five other members were convicted of a 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, Calif., in which a customer was shot and killed.
James William Kilgore, the last captured member of the SLA, was released on parole in 2009.
