They are prepared to commit murder for their cause': The shocking kidnap of a teenage newspaper heiress

BBC ^ | 03/16/2026 | Greg McKevitt

[Kid Shelleen]

Patty Hearst was abducted by a revolutionary group in 1974, as reported by the BBC. But 50 years ago, on 20 March 1976, she was found guilty of siding with her captors. ---SNIP--- Her kidnappers were in the obscure far-left Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA, one of many small radical groups of the era. Reporting for the BBC, US correspondent John Humphrys said that little was known about the group "except what they have written about themselves in their various pronouncements. That and the fact that members of the SLA are prepared to commit murder for their cause."

The group's first victim was Marcus Foster, an Oakland school superintendent whose supposed crime was trying to introduce security guards to local high schools. He was shot dead with cyanide-tipped bullets in November 1973

[Kid Shelleen]

50th anniversary of the conviction of Patty Hearst.

[frank ballenger]

I sided with her and have never wavered. She was kidnapped and brainwashed. Not guilty.

Patty Hearst’s seven-year sentence for bank robbery was commuted to the 22 months she had already served by President Jimmy Carter in January 1979.
Following her release, she was fully pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office, January 20, 2001, effectively erasing her criminal record.
-—Wikipedia.

[BenLurkin]

The Symbionese Liberation Army was the Antifa of it’s day.

To call them “far-left” is an understatement.

And particularly nettling is that BBC will call peaceful groups “far-right”, as if the Heritage Foundation uses cyanide tipped bullets.

[HIDEK6]

Patty Hearst was a revolutionary traitor and so was Carter.

[ansel12]

It was a time of constant terrorism.

“In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day.”

[roving]

I felt the same way.