by the Night Writer

A convicted would-be bomber and accessory to murder and armed robbery has been paroled from prison in California and is returning to Minnesota.

That may be “so what?” news for folks not from around here but it has been quite a story in Minnesota since 1999 when Kathleen Soliah (now known as Sara Jane Olson), one of the FBI’s “most wanted”, was found living a politically progressive, upper-middle class life in a toney St. Paul neighborhood. Soliah/Olson, a sympathizer and likely member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (of Patty Hearst fame) in the 70s had disappeared 23 years prior to her arrest following her grand jury indictment for her role in a bank robbery that resulted in the killing of a female bank customer and for participating in two attempts to bomb police cars in retaliation for a police shoot-out that killed many of her SLA friends. During the time she was “missing”, she adopted her new identity, married a St. Paul physician, raised a family, performed in several community theater productions and became well-known in activist circles for her support various liberal causes.

Her friends in turn took up her cause after her arrest, with well-known St. Paul office-holders Andy Dawkins and Sandy Pappas especially front and center protesting that she had lived a good life in the intervening years while also introducing the novel “everyone was an anarchist bomb-thrower in those days anyway” defense. Olson, nee Soliah, for her part pretty much denied anything other than being an admirer of the SLA. A lot of people, or at least the media, seemed to be buying it, too but a couple of things happened. One, the government started releasing more details of its case against her. The second thing was 9/11.

Any indulgence or sympathy for youthful, terroristic activities began to dry up, and Olson ultimately accepted (then tried to renege on) a plea bargain on the charges of planting bombs under two California police cars. After she started serving her sentence she was also convicted of the accessory to murder charge, and seven years were added to run concurrently with her original 14-year sentence, to be served in California. A year ago she was just about to be paroled a year early due to a clerical error but this was discovered and corrected and she returned prison. The calendar has now turned, but in the days leading up to her release the respective police unions in California and Minnesota, as well as the governors of the two states, have each insisted that they didn’t want her serving her parole anywhere near them. The public statements became a political side-show in a time when there are some real issues to be dealt with. Nevertheless, Kathleen Soliah/Sara Jane Olson is back in Minnesota after serving seven years of her sentence, with three years of parole to come.

Personally, I think I’m ready to call it square.

I didn’t sympathize with her story when she was finally captured and I didn’t appreciate the local DFL’s embrace of her and their attempts to minimize the serious offenses she committed. Nor do I downplay the seriousness of her intent and participation back in the day, or discount that her actions contributed to the death of another mother who will never come home. I was satisfied, however, to see her ultimately convicted and for the political and moral equivalency smokescreens to get hosed down. I also appreciated it when the amount of time she served turned out to be greater than the “two, three years, tops” predicted by the experts at the time she plead.

The fact is, she has done a significant amount of time and absorbed a (justified) amount of public humiliation. Points have been made. Frankly, I don’t feel our community is a more dangerous place with her in it, and I don’t expect a wave of police bombings or bank robberies even though some of her comments during her trial and incarceration suggest that she still harbors more than a little resentment against “The Man”.

The possibility exists that she might become a public figure again due to her infamy, but outside of a small, hard-core group of supporters I don’t think she has the credibility or gravitas to be anything better than a distraction at best — and a liability at worst — for any cause or campaign she aligns with.

If she wants to come back here, be with her family, and live a quiet, invisible life, I’m fine with that. I don’t have any interest in following her around and I hope she will be left in peace. If she desires a more public platform then the abuse that will likely be heaped on her — as with the time she spent incarcerated — will be something she brought on herself.

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