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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 tim
by jackfoxy 3y ago
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.
- rocqua 3y agoI presume you mean the Symbionese Liberation Army when you say SLA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
- Scoundreller 3y agoProbably. But Service Level Agreement Terrorism has a nice ring to it.
- stronglikedan 3y agoThey gave some context by specifying "SLA terrorism" up front, so it's a safe presumption.
- supportengineer 3y agoI feel pretty terrified when I receive an SLA breach alert
- pjc50 3y ago> 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 3y agosorry, but the proper american phrase is "license and registration"
- brnt 3y agoDrivers license and car registration, right? If I was a terrorist on US soil, I'm gonna be bussing.
- wolverine876 3y agoIntracity buses have cameras. Intercity buses require ID.
- interactivecode 3y agoWhy? Do interstates also have border check points?
- wolverine876 3y agoBus companies require them, afaik.
- irrational 3y agoNo they don’t. I’ve often put my kids on intercity (really interstate) buses to go visit their grandparents. I’ve never had to show ID and they don’t have ID.
- TheBlight 3y agoIs it possible this story served as a parallel construction -- like when you don't want to expose your actual sources and methods?
- jackfoxy 3y agoNo. 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.
- wolverine876 3y agoA 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.
- antoniojtorres 3y agoWhy don’t you ask for a source?
- ceejayoz 3y agoWhat would the identity of the "former Oakland PD officer" do to establish the veracity of the claim?
- tharmas 3y agoIt'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
- NotSammyHagar 3y agoAlso, the mafia came back, maybe not in his time.
- tharmas 3y agoThat was due to the Allied Military post-WW2 occupation of Italy. There are a couple of books on that very subject. These Mafioso presented themselves as anti-fascist and anti-communist to help their appointment into positions of power.
- doktrin 3y ago> 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?
- spacebacon 3y agoSee parallel construction comment above.
- jackfoxy 3y agoThey 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.
- doktrin 3y ago> The only thing the SLA was taking credit for at that time was the Marcus Foster murder. The only thing? That murder was a huge deal, and what got the FBI involved. We're talking about the assassination of Oakland's first black school superintendent. By self described marxist/lenninist/maoist terrorists and using cyanide laced bullets. The headlines write themselves. Now is there not only a fugitive in the group, but they're all fresh off making national news for political violence? Violence that wildly alienated the black community? At which point they choose to leave their actual safehouse to go to a "we think its safe" house in said community for a brief meeting? Did they forget their fake IDs? OPD is looking for (literal) leftist terrorists and don't find a single excuse to detain 6 hippies and a black man? I don't doubt you're sharing this in good faith, but If I'm gonna keep it a buck, none of this passes the smell test for me. That said, I guess it would track in a way. The whole SLA affair has a stranger than fiction vibe to it from start to finish.
- refurb 3y ago
- echelon_musk 3y agoAnyone 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_Radical_Underground,_the_FBI,_and_the_Forgotten_Age_of_Revolutionary_Violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage:_America%27s_Radi...
- LAC-Tech 3y agoDirty hippies. Thank god those domestic terrorists were apprehended before they could murder again.
- retox 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army 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.
- dang 3y agoPlease 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.
- LAC-Tech 3y ago[flagged]