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Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views

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Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those if the host, producers,

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Speaker 1: or parent company. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: At ten thirty pm on August twenty eighth, nineteen seventy three,

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Speaker 2: radical activist Popeye Jackson was arrested by two plane clothed

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Speaker 2: San Francisco police officers for possession and intent to sell

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Speaker 2: heroin and possession of marijuana. The officers did not have

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Speaker 2: a warrant to search the car that Popeye was driving.

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Speaker 2: They would later say that Popeye not only gave them

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Speaker 2: permission to search the car, but actually helped with the search.

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Speaker 2: People who knew Popeye would dispute this, arguing that there

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Speaker 2: was no way he would have permitted the search. In fact,

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Speaker 2: he frequently advised people to never let the police search

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Speaker 2: their car unless they had a warrant, whether the search

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Speaker 2: was legal or illegal. The cops discovered seven balloons containing

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Speaker 2: heroin and depending on the source, either two or five

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Speaker 2: joints hidden in a sneaker. Jackson was on parole after

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Speaker 2: a stint for burglary and robbery convictions. This was potentially

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Speaker 2: a catastrophic incident Popeye claimed the arrest was a setup

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Speaker 2: why it had been stopped in the first place. The

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Speaker 2: police claimed that the previous night, the twenty seventh, they

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Speaker 2: had arrested a woman named Sandy Parma for prostitution. According

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Speaker 2: to the police, Parma gave them the tip that Popeye

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Speaker 2: would have drugs with him. When the defense lawyers contacted Parma, however,

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Speaker 2: she denied that she had done so. Then she disappeared

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Speaker 2: and never resurfaced. On September tenth, two weeks after the arrest,

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Speaker 2: a twenty two year old woman named Jessica Vodquin held

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Speaker 2: a press conference organized by a radical group called Fenceramos,

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Speaker 2: using the alias Jessica Marie Gilman. Vodquin had worked part

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Speaker 2: time for Popeye's organization, the United Prisoners Union or UPU,

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Speaker 2: but Vodquin said she had actually been an informer for

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Speaker 2: the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI. She had

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Speaker 2: been paid to find information about Fenceamos and the UPU.

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Speaker 2: She said that she had been informing on Popeye for

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Speaker 2: the last nine months. She'd once borrowed his car and

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Speaker 2: driven to police headquarters where it was illegally searched. She'd

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Speaker 2: stolen keys, to the UPU office so that she could

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Speaker 2: access documents, including the list of former prisoners involved in

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Speaker 2: the UPU and Popeye's address book. She said that she

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Speaker 2: knew that Pope's arrest was a frame up, and that

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Speaker 2: the police had illegally recorded conversations that Popeye had with

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Speaker 2: his lawyer in a room specifically created for confidential conversations

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Speaker 2: between attorneys and clients. Police told her. She said that

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Speaker 2: Popeye was their number one target and that he'd been

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Speaker 2: under twenty four hour surveillance. This was a bombshell. Lending

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Speaker 2: credence to her story was the officer who served as

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Speaker 2: her contact with the San Francisco Police, Alexander Jason. Just

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Speaker 2: six months before, the head of the San Francisco State

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Speaker 2: University journalism department protested to the police department that Jason had,

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Speaker 2: for eighteen months pretended to be a student reporter for

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Speaker 2: a couple of different school publications in order to get

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Speaker 2: information about A. Vanceramo's study group on campus. He had

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Speaker 2: eventually been sniffed out by Venceramo's members and his cover

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Speaker 2: was blown. Now months later, the informant that he had

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Speaker 2: inside the UPU was accusing him of breaking the law

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Speaker 2: to try to convict Popeye. Popeye demanded that he'd be

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Speaker 2: given a lie detector test to clear himself of the charges.

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Speaker 2: The States said that red tape prevented this from happening.

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Speaker 2: The police did admit that they performed the search of

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Speaker 2: the car that Jessica Vadquin had brought them, and that

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Speaker 2: they taped the conversations at the jail, and then Jessica

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Speaker 2: Vodquin recanted. While under protective detention by the police, she

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Speaker 2: released a public statement that she had been threatened at

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Speaker 2: knife point by UPU members, demanding that she lie for Popeye.

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Speaker 2: This retraction was viewed suspiciously. Still, even without her testimony,

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Speaker 2: there seemed to be enough questions surrounding the arrest to

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Speaker 2: make a guilty verdict unlikely. Popeye testified that he did

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Speaker 2: not use heroin and had strong feelings about it because

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Speaker 2: his wife, pat Singer, had been addicted and his son

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Speaker 2: had been born with withdrawal symptoms. He also testified that

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Speaker 2: he had recently been subject to police harassment, being stopped

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Speaker 2: at least twenty five times in the two weeks leading

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Speaker 2: up to his arrest. In the end, the jury deliberated

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Speaker 2: for five hours and found Popeye not guilty, but this

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Speaker 2: did not end his legal peril. In California, there was

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Speaker 2: a panel of eight political appointees that could revoke a

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Speaker 2: person's parole for any reason. For Popeye, this could mean

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Speaker 2: returning to prison indefinitely. The radical newspaper The Berkeley Barb

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Speaker 2: wrote this about the situation.

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Speaker 1: This panel of flat foot lifers with jute mill manager mentalities,

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Speaker 1: who've probably spent more time around the joint than most cons,

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Speaker 1: will be particularly vicious with Popeye Jackson because, perhaps more

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Speaker 1: than any other man in the state of California, Popeye

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Speaker 1: has worked to bring their activities to public attention. So

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Speaker 1: even though Popeye has committed no crime, broken no rule,

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Speaker 1: they can jerk his parole and send him back for life.

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Speaker 2: A hearing on his parole revocation was set for the

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Speaker 2: following April. It was with this threat hanging over him

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Speaker 2: that Popeye Jackson established himself as a leader at the

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Speaker 2: People in Need program and met Sarah Jane Moore. I'm

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Speaker 2: Toby Ball.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current.

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Speaker 4: Greeting to the people. This is Tanya. On April fifteenth,

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Speaker 4: my comrades and I expropriated ten thousand, six hundred and

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Speaker 4: sixty dollars and two cents from the Sunset branch the

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Speaker 4: Hibernia Bank.

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Speaker 3: Episode eight, Popeye Jackson.

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Speaker 2: Why would the police be after Popeye Jackson? He was

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Speaker 2: forty three years old and had spent nineteen of those

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Speaker 2: years in the California Correctional system on a robbery charge

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Speaker 2: reportedly stemming from ten missing dollars. He'd emerged from prison

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy as the founder and president of the UPU,

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Speaker 2: one of several radical groups with a presence both inside

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Speaker 2: and outside prison walls. Once released, Jackson quickly became a

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Speaker 2: presence in the Bay Area. He was a member of

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Speaker 2: the Western Edition Project Alliance, a youth director for Seven Steps,

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Speaker 2: a drug counselor with Reality House West, and the founder

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Speaker 2: of the Drug Research Program. He was also an original

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Speaker 2: member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco

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Speaker 2: Council on Drug Abuse. He gave talks and community centers

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Speaker 2: and schools on issues from the dangers of drugs to

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Speaker 2: what could be done about racism in Boston. While this

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Speaker 2: work might seem admirable today as well as to many

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Speaker 2: people at the time, at the height of the Cold War,

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Speaker 2: many of these efforts were seen as influenced, if not

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Speaker 2: directly the result of communism. This marked Popeye and other

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Speaker 2: radical activists as in the eyes of Middle America anti American.

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Speaker 2: Popeye had come to activism while a prisoner in the

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Speaker 2: California penal system. He was in prison during a particularly

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Speaker 2: fertile time for radical thought, led by individuals like George

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Speaker 2: Jackson and organizations like the Black Gorilla Family. Jackson, the BGF,

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Speaker 2: and many other prison radicals were openly Marxist, which of

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Speaker 2: course alarmed authorities. For a more in depth look at

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Speaker 2: prison radicalism, listen to the Prison Radicalism Bonus episodes. They

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Speaker 2: are available now for iHeart True Crime Plus listeners and

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Speaker 2: will be available on all podcast apps at the end

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Speaker 2: of this season. But in short, radicals saw the penal

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Speaker 2: system as an extreme microcosm of society at large, dominated

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Speaker 2: by racist systems of control. This is civil rights leader

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Speaker 2: Angela Davis talking about systemic racism in a nineteen seventy

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Speaker 2: two interview.

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Speaker 5: In the whole history of the United States, the impact

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Speaker 5: of racism had been to attempt to contain Black people,

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Speaker 5: has been to attempt to stifle the desires towards liberation

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Speaker 5: One of the ways in which this is accomplished is

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Speaker 5: by trying to convince those people that they're completely pouloss

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Speaker 5: before this huge apparatus, and that the police can just

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Speaker 5: come into the community and put someone out kill them.

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Speaker 6: As they have done on many many occadence in his house,

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Speaker 6: charge them was something they didn't do railroad into physions,

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Speaker 6: send them to the gas chamber. This is just one

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Speaker 6: of the many ways that the system and it's not

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Speaker 6: a contried effort in the sense that it's done consciously

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Speaker 6: by a few men up at the top. It's built

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Speaker 6: into the system, it's built into our it built into

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Speaker 6: the nature the society.

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Speaker 5: And getting back to the question of what a revolutionary is,

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Speaker 5: a black revolutionary realizes that we cannot begin to combat lycism,

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Speaker 5: we cannot begin to effectively destroy racism until we destroyed

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Speaker 5: the whole system.

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Speaker 2: And again, prison was seen as exemplifying on a small scale,

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Speaker 2: the racist system of society as a whole.

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Speaker 7: One thing that's really important to understand about California in

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Speaker 7: some ways, in particular California at this time period, although

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Speaker 7: it's not exclusive to California, it's how much the prison

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Speaker 7: system is governing through racism. My name is Dan Berger.

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Speaker 7: I'm a professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University

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Speaker 7: of Washington, Baffo. So the prison system uses racism as

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Speaker 7: a way to keep people apart and to either introduce

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Speaker 7: or foster divisions between incarcerated people. And part of that

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Speaker 7: is that prisoners outnumber guards. And so one way that

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Speaker 7: prisons maintain social order is through cells. Through there's the

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Speaker 7: physical infrastructure that they use. There is the presence of guards.

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Speaker 7: By guards amplified that by fitting prisoners against each other,

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Speaker 7: and race became the way that they did that. Race

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Speaker 7: and to some extent, geography, so where in California people

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Speaker 7: were from. And so what I think radicals had to

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Speaker 7: do when George Jackson did this, I think Popeye tried

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Speaker 7: to do this as well, was to bridge those divides,

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Speaker 7: to try to get people to work with each other,

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Speaker 7: at least around some core issues against the prison system. Right,

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Speaker 7: this idea that the prison system was the real enemy,

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Speaker 7: whatever differences divide us.

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Speaker 2: Popeye Jackson felt as though his prison activism should benefit

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Speaker 2: all prisoners. Here's Popeye talking about the prison system strategy

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Speaker 2: of division on a KPFA radio documentary about the plight

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Speaker 2: of gay men in California prisons.

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Speaker 8: But we don't like to isolate the gay people from

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Speaker 8: any other convicts in the prison because we understand that

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Speaker 8: in order to deal with distant situation, we have to

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Speaker 8: work together. We have to help everybody in prison, not

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Speaker 8: just gay people or not just some other guy who

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Speaker 8: is not a gay person, because everybody at prison is

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Speaker 8: subjected to the same subjectivity, because the men are using

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Speaker 8: the gaze to play on the convicts and the contracts

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Speaker 8: to play on the gaze. So it's the same way

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Speaker 8: it divide us, and we can't do that ourselves. We

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Speaker 8: can't define ourselves out here. We know the man is

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Speaker 8: constantly continually dividing us. If they're not divide us between

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Speaker 8: gays and other straight so called great people in prison,

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Speaker 8: well with they divide us in racial mantle. They put

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Speaker 8: white against black, black against brown, red against yellow. They

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Speaker 8: constantly and continue to instigate and agitate racial attacks on

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Speaker 8: people in prison.

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Speaker 2: Guards and officials used a variety of tactics to maintain

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Speaker 2: an atmosphere of confrontation among different groups of people in prison,

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Speaker 2: largely based on racial identity.

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Speaker 9: So they would spread rumors to for example, the white

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Speaker 9: population that, oh, the black prisoners are plotting, which would

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Speaker 9: not be true. They would just say this because they

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Speaker 9: were trying to keep an environment that would prevent them

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Speaker 9: from ever having any sort of realization that actually, we're

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Speaker 9: all incarcerated and officers are above all of us.

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Speaker 2: This is Brittany Friedman, assistant professor of sociology at the

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Speaker 2: University of Southern California.

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Speaker 9: But the officers kept trying to foster a unity across

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Speaker 9: these boundaries to use for their own strategic ends, because

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Speaker 9: we know what ends up happening to some of the

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Speaker 9: groups that they united with. They were uniting with people

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Speaker 9: who ended up founding the Arean Brotherhood. But we know

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Speaker 9: that over time the Arian Brotherhood is no longer useful.

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Speaker 9: They do end up being locked up in Pelican Bay

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Speaker 9: in other super federal facilities actually, but in the early

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Speaker 9: stages in the fifties, sixties, seventies, they are very useful

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Speaker 9: for the type of control strategies that I'm talking about

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Speaker 9: to keep this separation. I like to think of it

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Speaker 9: as old school divide and conquered.

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Speaker 2: Brittany is describing a situation where for a time, the

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Speaker 2: mostly white prison guards allied themselves with the Aryan Brotherhood,

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Speaker 2: a white supremacist prison gang, in an attempt to control

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Speaker 2: the black prison population. Racial identity Trump the Prisoner Guard

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Speaker 2: Divide in a response to a growing number of black prisoners.

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Speaker 9: During that time period. In the sixties, you see a

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Speaker 9: big influx of black people into California prisons, many of

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Speaker 9: whom do self identify as either black militants or having

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Speaker 9: a allegiances, affiliations, or affinities for the Black freedom struggle,

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Speaker 9: which makes sense, right they're coming in from the outside.

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Speaker 9: But also in the sixties you have a very strong

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Speaker 9: contingent of white incarcerated people who are also bringing with

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Speaker 9: them their own societal allegiances, their own ideas from the

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Speaker 9: fifties and sixties about what black freedom would be and

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Speaker 9: their prejudices against it. They're also bringing in their experiences

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Speaker 9: in different organized groups, so for example, bikers were very

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Speaker 9: influential in the founding of the Area and Brotherhood. They're

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Speaker 9: bringing in all of these ideologies and cultural frames that

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Speaker 9: are very anti black at the time, and so in

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Speaker 9: the sixties this is really creating a recipe for potential disaster.

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Speaker 9: But what the Department of Corrections does, and in particular,

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Speaker 9: officers white officers at the time begin to see the

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Speaker 9: white incarcerated parts population, especially the self identified white supremacist population,

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Speaker 9: as allies. As allies in a similar fight.

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Speaker 2: The prison radicals of the late sixties and seventies had

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Speaker 2: experienced the consequences of this two pronged system of repression

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Speaker 2: from both prison authorities and racist white prisoners in the

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Speaker 2: violent California penal system. The parole board had the authority

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Speaker 2: to send Popeye back to this environment that he knew

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Speaker 2: all too well. What Popeye couldn't know was that a

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Speaker 2: middle aged accountant named Sarah Jane Moore would prove a

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Speaker 2: greater danger to him, but there was no sign of

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Speaker 2: this when they first met. After the break, with the

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Speaker 2: threat of his parole revocation hearing hanging over his head,

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Speaker 2: Popeye Jackson went to work at the People in Need program,

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Speaker 2: assisting in Randolph Hurst's rushed and chaotic effort to get

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Speaker 2: food to the Bay Areas poor. As Sarah Jane noticed,

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Speaker 2: he assumed an authority based on his strong personality and

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Speaker 2: status within the radical community. This authority showed itself in

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Speaker 2: different ways. Patty hurst fiance Stephen Weed, related a story

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Speaker 2: in which Popeye was present at a meeting where PIN

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Speaker 2: overseer Ludlow Kramer was criticized for the difficulties that dyd

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Speaker 2: encountered getting the food trucks to the distribution sites. Kramer

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Speaker 2: said they were doing the best they could. In front

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Speaker 2: of the assembled organizers, Popeye called into question the effort

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Speaker 2: being put forward by the PIN hierarchy. White people, he asserted,

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Speaker 2: could make it happen if they were committed. He publicly

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Speaker 2: challenged Kramer's commitment. Later, the San Francisco Examiner quoted Governor

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Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan as saying about PIN, I just think there's

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Speaker 2: a characteristic on the part of people that they like

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Speaker 2: something for nothing. As a counterpoint to that statement, the

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Speaker 2: paper quoted Popeye is saying, it's terrible that we have

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Speaker 2: to stoop to things like the Simonese Liberation Army to

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Speaker 2: feed people. The PIN food distributions finished on March twenty fifth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, less than a month before Popeye's parole

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Speaker 2: revocation hearing. But while the distribution was complete, there was

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Speaker 2: still work to be done in the warehouse and in

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Speaker 2: the accounting for all the incoming and outgoing purchases and donations.

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Speaker 2: Sarah Jane and Popeye were among the many people who

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Speaker 2: remained to do this work. Sarah Jane found Popeye to

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Speaker 2: be both personally and politically impressive. She asked him to

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Speaker 2: educate her on the politics of the left. She attended

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Speaker 2: United Prisoners Union benefits and events in order to strengthen

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Speaker 2: her ties to him. Randolph First was desperate for any

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Speaker 2: possible leads to Patty's whereabouts. He, like Sarah Jane, had

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Speaker 2: noticed Popeye in the pin warehouse and learned about Popeye's

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Speaker 2: connection with the radical world. Pop I met with Hurst

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Speaker 2: and came away with the sense that Hurst thought highly

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Speaker 2: of him. His wife pat Singer would later say Popeye

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Speaker 2: believed Hurst had respect for him as a man and

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Speaker 2: that hearst recognized that he was getting fucked over, getting

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Speaker 2: fucked over by the State of California through its threat

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Speaker 2: to revoke his parole. Popeye suggested to Hurst that he

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Speaker 2: could make informal contact with the SLA. Sarah Jane would

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Speaker 2: serve as a go between for the two men. Author

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Speaker 2: Jerry Spieler, Popeye was very powerful politically, you know, in

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Speaker 2: the movement in San Francisco.

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Speaker 10: He knew everybody, and everybody knew him, so you know.

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Speaker 10: If Randolph Hurst could see that Popeye could help him,

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Speaker 10: he certainly, you know, because it wanted to protect him

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Speaker 10: from prison and be able to help him get his daughterback,

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Speaker 10: because Popeye would have communication available that nobody else would.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to know how hopeful Hurst was that Popeye

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Speaker 2: could actually follow through on this offer, but he was

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Speaker 2: eager to maintain good relations with the radical left, and

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Speaker 2: he had something that Popeye needed, the power of the press.

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Speaker 2: Hurst owned the San Francisco Examiner, and whether or not

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Speaker 2: there was a formal deal, the Examiner put its weight

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00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:31,959
Speaker 2: behind Popeye. In advance of the parole revocation hearing. On

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Speaker 2: April seventh, the paper published an article about the upcoming hearing,

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Speaker 2: focusing on Popeye's community and prison reform work. Two days later,

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Speaker 2: it ran an editorial titled It's Wrong, opposing revocation of

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Speaker 2: Popeye's parole. It read, in part, we.

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Speaker 1: Admit to prejudice about Popeye. We've seen him in action

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Speaker 1: the United Prisoners Union, which he had acted as an

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Speaker 1: observer of the People in Need program set up after

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Speaker 1: the Patricia Hurst kidnapping. We've seen him help would help

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Speaker 1: was needed.

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Speaker 2: This connection with Hurst would later be used against Popeye.

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Speaker 3: Sarah Jane facilitated the relationship between Popeye and Randolph Hurst

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Speaker 3: at the same time she was contacted by the FBI.

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Speaker 3: The FBI had, of course, been involved in the investigation

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Speaker 3: of Patty Hurst kidnapping and had been in and out

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Speaker 3: of Hearst's office at Penn headquarters. In this environment where

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Speaker 3: seemingly everyone was watching everyone else, the agent running the

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Speaker 3: investigation noticed Sarah Jane and saw possibilities.

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Speaker 10: The FBI and Charlie Bates, who was the agent in charge,

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Speaker 10: saw Sarah Jane as somebody who was connecting with many

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Speaker 10: different people at Penn and did connect with Popeye Jackson,

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Speaker 10: and they saw her as somebody because she didn't look

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Speaker 10: like a radical. She still very much dressed like the

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Speaker 10: neighbor lady or the housewife in Danville, so she could

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Speaker 10: sort of enter into these areas that other people couldn't.

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Speaker 3: Charlie Bates approached Sarah Jane and she agreed to a meeting.

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Speaker 3: She discussed this meeting at length in a prison interview

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Speaker 3: with Playboy in nineteen seventy six. As instructed by Charlie,

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Speaker 3: she called a number the next morning during her coffee

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Speaker 3: break and was told to stand at a specific street

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Speaker 3: corner and wait for someone to come get her. She

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Speaker 3: did so and was picked up by a green car

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Speaker 3: with an agent named Bert Worthington in the backseat. Worthington

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Speaker 3: would become Sarah Jane's control officer. In this meeting, Moore

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Speaker 3: says she told the FBI agent that Popeye had offered

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Speaker 3: to be the conduit for communications between Hurst and the SLA.

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Speaker 3: The FBI was dubious that the SLA would trust Popeye,

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Speaker 3: but still it was not out of the question. At

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Speaker 3: a later meeting, they asked Sarah Jane if she knew

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Speaker 3: a particular person in the radical world. Sarah Jane said

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Speaker 3: she'd met him a couple of times. The FBI thought

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Speaker 3: that this was the most likely person to be able

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Speaker 3: to communicate with the SLA. Sarah Jane has never revealed

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Speaker 3: this man's name. She refers to him as Tom, and

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Speaker 3: his advice to her plays a critical role in her

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Speaker 3: life over the next year and a half. She told Playboy,

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Speaker 3: when the FBI agents told me they thought Tom was

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Speaker 3: in touch with the SLA, I had you're joking. They

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Speaker 3: assured me they were not. I agreed to work with them,

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Speaker 3: and Tom became my target, but that didn't mean pulling

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Speaker 3: away from Popeye yet.

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Speaker 10: I think Sarah Jane, she never said this, but other

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Speaker 10: people have thought it, was very attracted to Popeye because

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Speaker 10: of his power in the political community. He was just

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Speaker 10: a very powerful guy. And she also the FBI wanted

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Speaker 10: her to make sure she befriended him because of who

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Speaker 10: he was and what he knew. So she asked Popeye

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Speaker 10: to sort of mentor her into the radical community. And

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Speaker 10: so that was their relationship, and Popeye saw an opportunity

365
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Speaker 10: for somebody to infiltrate things that maybe other people couldn't

366
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Speaker 10: because Sarah Jane did not fit or look like the

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Speaker 10: mold of the radical in Berkeley or in San Francisco.

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Speaker 10: She just didn't fit that mold. Sarah Jane looked very

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Speaker 10: middle class matron, would sort of stand out as somebody

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Speaker 10: may be safe. They wouldn't take her seriously because she

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00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 10: didn't look the part, and in some ways that can

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Speaker 10: be an advantage that people may not take you seriously

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Speaker 10: and then say things in front of you that they

374
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Speaker 10: don't think you get.

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Speaker 3: Six days after, the San Francisco Examiner ran its editorial

376
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Speaker 3: calling for Popeye Jackson's parole to be kept in place.

377
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Speaker 3: The world got its first look at Patty Hurst since

378
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Speaker 3: the kidnapping. She had taken on a new name given

379
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Speaker 3: to her by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Tanya.

380
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Speaker 4: Greeting to the people, This is Tanya. On April fifteenth,

381
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Speaker 4: my comrades and I expropriated ten thousand, six hundred and

382
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Speaker 4: sixty dollars and two cents from the Sunset branch of

383
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Speaker 4: the Hibernia Bank.

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Speaker 11: Eye witnesses say that as bank robberies go, this one

385
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Speaker 11: was extremely well planned. FBI agents say the girl identified

386
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Speaker 11: as Patty Hurst stood right about here, her right hand

387
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Speaker 11: either on the trigger of the gun or near her pocket,

388
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Speaker 11: and she was apparently aiming at between five and eight

389
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Speaker 11: bank employees and customers who were ordered face down behind

390
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Speaker 11: these counters.

391
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 4: I was positioned so that I could hold customers and

392
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Speaker 4: bank personnel who were on the floor. My gun was loaded,

393
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Speaker 4: and at no time did any of my comrades intentionally

394
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Speaker 4: point their guns at me.

395
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Speaker 11: Another one of the SLA women in her gun stood

396
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Speaker 11: about here. Now she had a great view of all

397
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Speaker 11: the tellers and all the other people in the banks.

398
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Speaker 4: I am a soldier and the People's Army Patria on Wednesday, sensormos.

399
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Speaker 8: A fascius in sick place upon the life of the people.

400
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Speaker 3: For seventy one days, the nation had fretted about Patty's

401
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 3: fate at the hands of the SLA. Now she had

402
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 3: appeared as a gun toting comrade of her abductors and

403
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 3: a violent bank robbery. Two men were wounded by gunshots

404
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 3: when one unknowingly entered the bank during the robbery. A

405
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 3: jarring photo of Patty aka Tanya, wielding a semi automatic

406
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 3: weapon in the bank ran in newspapers around the world.

407
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 3: On April twenty fourth, a new communicate taking credit for

408
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 3: the bank robbery appeared, some of which you just heard.

409
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 3: Public opinion changed. Patty Hurst had gone from victim suddenly

410
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 3: to radical terrorists. It's hard to overstate how shocking this was.

411
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 3: Popeye's parole revocation hearing was set to be held at

412
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 3: San Quentin State Penitentiary on April twenty third, nineteen seventy four.

413
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Speaker 3: On the evening of the twenty first, six days after

414
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 3: the Hibernia bank robbery, an indoor rally of about one

415
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 3: hundred people was held at a community center in the

416
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 3: Mission District of San Francisco, to show support for Popeye.

417
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 3: Stephen Weed was there and wrote about what happened at

418
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 3: the end in his book. The story he laid out

419
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 3: was corroborated by press accounts. Weed says that he left

420
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 3: the building and ran into a radio reporter he knew,

421
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 3: along with a female friend. Weed stopped and talked with

422
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 3: them on the sidewalk. A police cruiser pulled up to

423
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 3: them and asked for identification. Weed and the reporter showed theirs,

424
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 3: but the woman said she didn't have hers. This was

425
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 3: a problem because the police thought that she looked like

426
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 3: Nancy Lee Perry, who was a wonted member of the

427
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 3: Symbionese Liberation Army. The woman's name was actually Christine Mummy.

428
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 3: The police said she'd have to come to the station

429
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 3: with them. Christine Mummy appear currently owed thirteen dollars in

430
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 3: parking tickets. A crowd was leaving the community center and

431
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 3: emerged to find Christine arguing with the police. The situation

432
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: turned tents. Two more squad cars arrived, lights on. A

433
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 3: large crowd gathered around, yelling at the officers. The officers

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00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 3: yelled back, telling the crowd to back up. Popeye stepped

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00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 3: out from the crowd demanding to know why they were

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00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 3: taking Christine in. A sergeant named Louis Calabro yelled at

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00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 3: Popeye to get back on the curb. Popeye stood his

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00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 3: ground and the sergeant got in his face, and the

439
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 3: two men yelled at each other, not touching, but within inches.

440
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 3: The sergeant again told Popeye to get back on the curb,

441
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 3: and Popeye again stood his ground. Then quickly Popeye was

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00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 3: cuffed and against the squad car, and so less than

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00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 3: forty eight hours before he was to go in front

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00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: of the parole board, Popeye was arrested for verbally abusing

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00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 3: police and allegedly pushing the police sergeant. This was trouble,

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00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 3: especially as Popeye had built up so much goodwill among

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00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 3: in Floes ruential people, despite his continued advocacy for violent radicalism.

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00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 12: For me, he was a very likable person and he

449
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 12: must have struck a lot of people that way, because

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00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 12: he won a lot of friends, and especially in the

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00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,719
Speaker 12: white community at the time he had started seating.

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00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 3: This is Jacob Holt, a Danish photographer who documented life

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00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: in impoverished black communities in the US during the early

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00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies and became a friend of Popeye's.

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00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 12: Even the conservative San Francisco Examiner had had an editorial

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00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 12: about how giving Popeye a chance, and Popeye was given

457
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 12: a lot of credit in the white media and white schools.

458
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 12: He went out and did talks about being black underclass

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00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 12: and said and got a lot of support from deeple.

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00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: Popeye surely understood the importance of having support from quote

461
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 3: unquote respet afected members of the community in facing a

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00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 3: parole board whose members had all been appointed by Ronald Reagan.

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00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: On April twenty third, Popeye was accompanied to the hearing

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00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: at San Quentin by a radical clergyman named Reverend Cecil

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00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 3: Williams of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.

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00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 13: I believe that we have to radical eye things to

467
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 13: get things done very quickly. Social change means rapid social change,

468
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 13: it seems to me. Also, I believe that Jesus Christ

469
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 13: was a revolutionary and he was a radical, and you

470
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 13: got to be out there.

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00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 3: As Popeye and Reverend Williams approached the prison entrance, they

472
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 3: passed by a group of about two hundred supporters standing

473
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 3: in the rain holding free Popeye signs. Popeye had listed

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00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 3: thirty five witnesses who might appear on his behalf. This

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00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 3: list included Congressman Ron Dellams, a state assemblyman, a parole officer,

476
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: a television reporter, and several San Francisco policemen. It's not

477
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 3: clear who exactly showed up to testify. Reverend Williams would

478
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 3: later say that he testified to Popeye's character and his

479
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 3: good works assisting other ex convicts and helping at Glide

480
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 3: Memorial Church. In the end, Popeye's parole was not revoked,

481
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 3: meaning that he would not face any more prison time,

482
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 3: but Popeye was furious. He claimed that he had been

483
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 3: coerced into signing documents that imposed more restrictive parole conditions.

484
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 3: He was, for instance, prohibited from traveling beyond a fifty

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00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 3: mile radius of San Francisco without permission from his parole officer.

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00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 3: He was, however, free to walk out of prison, which

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00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 3: he did ten hours after entering, but his day was

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00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 3: not done. The supporting crowd had dwindled to about forty people.

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00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 3: As Popeye approached them, a male supporter collapsed in an

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00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 3: epileptic seizure. Popeye rushed over, got on his knees, and

491
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 3: cradled the man's head for twenty minutes. Until the ambulance arrived.

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00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 3: Popeye wouldn't be serving more time in prison. With the insular,

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00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 3: radical world of San Francisco posed its own dangers to

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00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 3: someone with his public notoriety, things would not get easier

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00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 3: for him or for Sarah Jane next time on Rip Current.

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00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and

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00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary

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00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: Catherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by

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00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: Jeff Niya's Goda and Charles Rudder. Producers Jesse funk, Rema

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00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: O'Kelly and Noms Griffin. Supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers

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00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams and Matt Frederick.

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00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 11: Hear.

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00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: Episodes of Rip Current early completely add free and receive

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