WEBVTT - S1 E8: Popeye Jackson 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.600 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:09.719 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those if the host, producers, 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.040 or parent company. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.600 At ten thirty pm on August twenty eighth, nineteen seventy three, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:27.080 radical activist Popeye Jackson was arrested by two plane clothed 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.200 San Francisco police officers for possession and intent to sell 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.239 heroin and possession of marijuana. The officers did not have 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.120 a warrant to search the car that Popeye was driving. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.239 They would later say that Popeye not only gave them 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.640 permission to search the car, but actually helped with the search. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.000 People who knew Popeye would dispute this, arguing that there 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.440 was no way he would have permitted the search. In fact, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.960 he frequently advised people to never let the police search 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.400 their car unless they had a warrant, whether the search 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:06.000 was legal or illegal. The cops discovered seven balloons containing 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.360 heroin and depending on the source, either two or five 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.160 joints hidden in a sneaker. Jackson was on parole after 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:19.640 a stint for burglary and robbery convictions. This was potentially 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.480 a catastrophic incident Popeye claimed the arrest was a setup 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.920 why it had been stopped in the first place. The 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.360 police claimed that the previous night, the twenty seventh, they 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:36.160 had arrested a woman named Sandy Parma for prostitution. According 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.000 to the police, Parma gave them the tip that Popeye 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.399 would have drugs with him. When the defense lawyers contacted Parma, however, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.640 she denied that she had done so. Then she disappeared 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:53.840 and never resurfaced. On September tenth, two weeks after the arrest, 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.800 a twenty two year old woman named Jessica Vodquin held 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.040 a press conference organized by a radical group called Fenceramos, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.400 using the alias Jessica Marie Gilman. Vodquin had worked part 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:12.359 time for Popeye's organization, the United Prisoners Union or UPU, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.639 but Vodquin said she had actually been an informer for 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.400 the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI. She had 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.360 been paid to find information about Fenceamos and the UPU. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.640 She said that she had been informing on Popeye for 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.240 the last nine months. She'd once borrowed his car and 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.440 driven to police headquarters where it was illegally searched. She'd 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.800 stolen keys, to the UPU office so that she could 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:43.000 access documents, including the list of former prisoners involved in 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:47.160 the UPU and Popeye's address book. She said that she 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.120 knew that Pope's arrest was a frame up, and that 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.000 the police had illegally recorded conversations that Popeye had with 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.880 his lawyer in a room specifically created for confidential conversations 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.720 between attorneys and clients. Police told her. She said that 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.520 Popeye was their number one target and that he'd been 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:12.040 under twenty four hour surveillance. This was a bombshell. Lending 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.160 credence to her story was the officer who served as 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:20.120 her contact with the San Francisco Police, Alexander Jason. Just 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.240 six months before, the head of the San Francisco State 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.919 University journalism department protested to the police department that Jason had, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.480 for eighteen months pretended to be a student reporter for 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.600 a couple of different school publications in order to get 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.160 information about A. Vanceramo's study group on campus. He had 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.800 eventually been sniffed out by Venceramo's members and his cover 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.320 was blown. Now months later, the informant that he had 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.680 inside the UPU was accusing him of breaking the law 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:56.040 to try to convict Popeye. Popeye demanded that he'd be 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.240 given a lie detector test to clear himself of the charges. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.040 The States said that red tape prevented this from happening. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.520 The police did admit that they performed the search of 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.600 the car that Jessica Vadquin had brought them, and that 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:15.000 they taped the conversations at the jail, and then Jessica 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:20.440 Vodquin recanted. While under protective detention by the police, she 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.240 released a public statement that she had been threatened at 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:28.640 knife point by UPU members, demanding that she lie for Popeye. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:34.159 This retraction was viewed suspiciously. Still, even without her testimony, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.800 there seemed to be enough questions surrounding the arrest to 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.200 make a guilty verdict unlikely. Popeye testified that he did 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.720 not use heroin and had strong feelings about it because 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.440 his wife, pat Singer, had been addicted and his son 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.960 had been born with withdrawal symptoms. He also testified that 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.600 he had recently been subject to police harassment, being stopped 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.480 at least twenty five times in the two weeks leading 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.520 up to his arrest. In the end, the jury deliberated 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.960 for five hours and found Popeye not guilty, but this 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:13.440 did not end his legal peril. In California, there was 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.640 a panel of eight political appointees that could revoke a 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.840 person's parole for any reason. For Popeye, this could mean 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.920 returning to prison indefinitely. The radical newspaper The Berkeley Barb 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:27.919 wrote this about the situation. 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.600 This panel of flat foot lifers with jute mill manager mentalities, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.719 who've probably spent more time around the joint than most cons, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:41.440 will be particularly vicious with Popeye Jackson because, perhaps more 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.480 than any other man in the state of California, Popeye 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.880 has worked to bring their activities to public attention. So 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.760 even though Popeye has committed no crime, broken no rule, 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.000 they can jerk his parole and send him back for life. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.040 A hearing on his parole revocation was set for the 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.680 following April. It was with this threat hanging over him 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.440 that Popeye Jackson established himself as a leader at the 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:14.000 People in Need program and met Sarah Jane Moore. I'm 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:14.880 Toby Ball. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.040 And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.440 Greeting to the people. This is Tanya. On April fifteenth, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.840 my comrades and I expropriated ten thousand, six hundred and 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.600 sixty dollars and two cents from the Sunset branch the 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:37.599 Hibernia Bank. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.680 Episode eight, Popeye Jackson. 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.560 Why would the police be after Popeye Jackson? He was 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.400 forty three years old and had spent nineteen of those 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.920 years in the California Correctional system on a robbery charge 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.560 reportedly stemming from ten missing dollars. He'd emerged from prison 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.800 in nineteen seventy as the founder and president of the UPU, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.880 one of several radical groups with a presence both inside 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:18.200 and outside prison walls. Once released, Jackson quickly became a 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.000 presence in the Bay Area. He was a member of 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.600 the Western Edition Project Alliance, a youth director for Seven Steps, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.840 a drug counselor with Reality House West, and the founder 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.480 of the Drug Research Program. He was also an original 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.480 member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:41.040 Council on Drug Abuse. He gave talks and community centers 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.360 and schools on issues from the dangers of drugs to 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.640 what could be done about racism in Boston. While this 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.560 work might seem admirable today as well as to many 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.200 people at the time, at the height of the Cold War, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.480 many of these efforts were seen as influenced, if not 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:01.320 directly the result of communism. This marked Popeye and other 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:06.160 radical activists as in the eyes of Middle America anti American. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.160 Popeye had come to activism while a prisoner in the 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.600 California penal system. He was in prison during a particularly 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.600 fertile time for radical thought, led by individuals like George 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:24.800 Jackson and organizations like the Black Gorilla Family. Jackson, the BGF, 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.080 and many other prison radicals were openly Marxist, which of 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.000 course alarmed authorities. For a more in depth look at 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:38.280 prison radicalism, listen to the Prison Radicalism Bonus episodes. They 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.960 are available now for iHeart True Crime Plus listeners and 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.240 will be available on all podcast apps at the end 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:50.560 of this season. But in short, radicals saw the penal 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:55.000 system as an extreme microcosm of society at large, dominated 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:59.200 by racist systems of control. This is civil rights leader 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.840 Angela Davis talking about systemic racism in a nineteen seventy 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:04.560 two interview. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:11.679 In the whole history of the United States, the impact 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:17.000 of racism had been to attempt to contain Black people, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:23.239 has been to attempt to stifle the desires towards liberation 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.400 One of the ways in which this is accomplished is 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.520 by trying to convince those people that they're completely pouloss 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.440 before this huge apparatus, and that the police can just 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.520 come into the community and put someone out kill them. 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.400 As they have done on many many occadence in his house, 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.040 charge them was something they didn't do railroad into physions, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.320 send them to the gas chamber. This is just one 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.000 of the many ways that the system and it's not 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.960 a contried effort in the sense that it's done consciously 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.920 by a few men up at the top. It's built 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.760 into the system, it's built into our it built into 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.200 the nature the society. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.400 And getting back to the question of what a revolutionary is, 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:17.119 a black revolutionary realizes that we cannot begin to combat lycism, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:22.079 we cannot begin to effectively destroy racism until we destroyed 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.160 the whole system. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.920 And again, prison was seen as exemplifying on a small scale, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.000 the racist system of society as a whole. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.200 One thing that's really important to understand about California in 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.439 some ways, in particular California at this time period, although 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.360 it's not exclusive to California, it's how much the prison 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:48.120 system is governing through racism. My name is Dan Berger. 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.680 I'm a professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.520 of Washington, Baffo. So the prison system uses racism as 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:01.960 a way to keep people apart and to either introduce 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.120 or foster divisions between incarcerated people. And part of that 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.440 is that prisoners outnumber guards. And so one way that 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.520 prisons maintain social order is through cells. Through there's the 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.360 physical infrastructure that they use. There is the presence of guards. 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:24.040 By guards amplified that by fitting prisoners against each other, 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.680 and race became the way that they did that. Race 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.520 and to some extent, geography, so where in California people 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.679 were from. And so what I think radicals had to 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.440 do when George Jackson did this, I think Popeye tried 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.760 to do this as well, was to bridge those divides, 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.360 to try to get people to work with each other, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:50.120 at least around some core issues against the prison system. Right, 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.280 this idea that the prison system was the real enemy, 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.120 whatever differences divide us. 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.040 Popeye Jackson felt as though his prison activism should benefit 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:04.079 all prisoners. Here's Popeye talking about the prison system strategy 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.679 of division on a KPFA radio documentary about the plight 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.120 of gay men in California prisons. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.960 But we don't like to isolate the gay people from 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.200 any other convicts in the prison because we understand that 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.840 in order to deal with distant situation, we have to 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.880 work together. We have to help everybody in prison, not 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:24.959 just gay people or not just some other guy who 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.920 is not a gay person, because everybody at prison is 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.880 subjected to the same subjectivity, because the men are using 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.120 the gaze to play on the convicts and the contracts 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.240 to play on the gaze. So it's the same way 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.880 it divide us, and we can't do that ourselves. We 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.520 can't define ourselves out here. We know the man is 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.720 constantly continually dividing us. If they're not divide us between 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.600 gays and other straight so called great people in prison, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.160 well with they divide us in racial mantle. They put 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.199 white against black, black against brown, red against yellow. They 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.720 constantly and continue to instigate and agitate racial attacks on 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.800 people in prison. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.400 Guards and officials used a variety of tactics to maintain 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.480 an atmosphere of confrontation among different groups of people in prison, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.000 largely based on racial identity. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.079 So they would spread rumors to for example, the white 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.600 population that, oh, the black prisoners are plotting, which would 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.760 not be true. They would just say this because they 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.000 were trying to keep an environment that would prevent them 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.920 from ever having any sort of realization that actually, we're 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.440 all incarcerated and officers are above all of us. 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:39.480 This is Brittany Friedman, assistant professor of sociology at the 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.600 University of Southern California. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.160 But the officers kept trying to foster a unity across 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.600 these boundaries to use for their own strategic ends, because 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.360 we know what ends up happening to some of the 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.680 groups that they united with. They were uniting with people 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.679 who ended up founding the Arean Brotherhood. But we know 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.160 that over time the Arian Brotherhood is no longer useful. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.680 They do end up being locked up in Pelican Bay 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:10.720 in other super federal facilities actually, but in the early 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:15.199 stages in the fifties, sixties, seventies, they are very useful 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.360 for the type of control strategies that I'm talking about 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.560 to keep this separation. I like to think of it 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.440 as old school divide and conquered. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.960 Brittany is describing a situation where for a time, the 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.240 mostly white prison guards allied themselves with the Aryan Brotherhood, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.800 a white supremacist prison gang, in an attempt to control 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:43.120 the black prison population. Racial identity Trump the Prisoner Guard 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.400 Divide in a response to a growing number of black prisoners. 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.840 During that time period. In the sixties, you see a 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.880 big influx of black people into California prisons, many of 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.400 whom do self identify as either black militants or having 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:05.160 a allegiances, affiliations, or affinities for the Black freedom struggle, 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.520 which makes sense, right they're coming in from the outside. 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.240 But also in the sixties you have a very strong 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.080 contingent of white incarcerated people who are also bringing with 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.520 them their own societal allegiances, their own ideas from the 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.480 fifties and sixties about what black freedom would be and 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:30.720 their prejudices against it. They're also bringing in their experiences 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.600 in different organized groups, so for example, bikers were very 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.400 influential in the founding of the Area and Brotherhood. They're 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.360 bringing in all of these ideologies and cultural frames that 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.000 are very anti black at the time, and so in 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.960 the sixties this is really creating a recipe for potential disaster. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.000 But what the Department of Corrections does, and in particular, 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.680 officers white officers at the time begin to see the 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:04.600 white incarcerated parts population, especially the self identified white supremacist population, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.320 as allies. As allies in a similar fight. 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.520 The prison radicals of the late sixties and seventies had 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.520 experienced the consequences of this two pronged system of repression 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.960 from both prison authorities and racist white prisoners in the 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.240 violent California penal system. The parole board had the authority 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.200 to send Popeye back to this environment that he knew 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.040 all too well. What Popeye couldn't know was that a 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.680 middle aged accountant named Sarah Jane Moore would prove a 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.640 greater danger to him, but there was no sign of 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:51.640 this when they first met. After the break, with the 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.080 threat of his parole revocation hearing hanging over his head, 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.920 Popeye Jackson went to work at the People in Need program, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.480 assisting in Randolph Hurst's rushed and chaotic effort to get 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.520 food to the Bay Areas poor. As Sarah Jane noticed, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.639 he assumed an authority based on his strong personality and 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:16.359 status within the radical community. This authority showed itself in 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:21.920 different ways. Patty hurst fiance Stephen Weed, related a story 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.600 in which Popeye was present at a meeting where PIN 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:29.600 overseer Ludlow Kramer was criticized for the difficulties that dyd 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.280 encountered getting the food trucks to the distribution sites. Kramer 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.920 said they were doing the best they could. In front 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.560 of the assembled organizers, Popeye called into question the effort 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.440 being put forward by the PIN hierarchy. White people, he asserted, 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.760 could make it happen if they were committed. He publicly 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:54.280 challenged Kramer's commitment. Later, the San Francisco Examiner quoted Governor 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.120 Ronald Reagan as saying about PIN, I just think there's 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.840 a characteristic on the part of people that they like 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.560 something for nothing. As a counterpoint to that statement, the 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.080 paper quoted Popeye is saying, it's terrible that we have 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.199 to stoop to things like the Simonese Liberation Army to 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:17.440 feed people. The PIN food distributions finished on March twenty fifth, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.520 nineteen seventy four, less than a month before Popeye's parole 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.879 revocation hearing. But while the distribution was complete, there was 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.480 still work to be done in the warehouse and in 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.560 the accounting for all the incoming and outgoing purchases and donations. 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.640 Sarah Jane and Popeye were among the many people who 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.760 remained to do this work. Sarah Jane found Popeye to 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:45.200 be both personally and politically impressive. She asked him to 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.280 educate her on the politics of the left. She attended 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.200 United Prisoners Union benefits and events in order to strengthen 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.720 her ties to him. Randolph First was desperate for any 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.520 possible leads to Patty's whereabouts. He, like Sarah Jane, had 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.080 noticed Popeye in the pin warehouse and learned about Popeye's 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.880 connection with the radical world. Pop I met with Hurst 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.679 and came away with the sense that Hurst thought highly 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:16.160 of him. His wife pat Singer would later say Popeye 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.000 believed Hurst had respect for him as a man and 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.720 that hearst recognized that he was getting fucked over, getting 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.200 fucked over by the State of California through its threat 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:30.080 to revoke his parole. Popeye suggested to Hurst that he 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.360 could make informal contact with the SLA. Sarah Jane would 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.240 serve as a go between for the two men. Author 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:44.720 Jerry Spieler, Popeye was very powerful politically, you know, in 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:46.480 the movement in San Francisco. 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.359 He knew everybody, and everybody knew him, so you know. 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.640 If Randolph Hurst could see that Popeye could help him, 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.480 he certainly, you know, because it wanted to protect him 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.600 from prison and be able to help him get his daughterback, 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.520 because Popeye would have communication available that nobody else would. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.720 It's hard to know how hopeful Hurst was that Popeye 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.679 could actually follow through on this offer, but he was 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.479 eager to maintain good relations with the radical left, and 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.840 he had something that Popeye needed, the power of the press. 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.240 Hurst owned the San Francisco Examiner, and whether or not 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.240 there was a formal deal, the Examiner put its weight 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:31.959 behind Popeye. In advance of the parole revocation hearing. On 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.720 April seventh, the paper published an article about the upcoming hearing, 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:41.399 focusing on Popeye's community and prison reform work. Two days later, 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.720 it ran an editorial titled It's Wrong, opposing revocation of 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:51.200 Popeye's parole. It read, in part, we. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.359 Admit to prejudice about Popeye. We've seen him in action 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.560 the United Prisoners Union, which he had acted as an 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.600 observer of the People in Need program set up after 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.040 the Patricia Hurst kidnapping. We've seen him help would help 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:05.600 was needed. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:12.879 This connection with Hurst would later be used against Popeye. 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:17.119 Sarah Jane facilitated the relationship between Popeye and Randolph Hurst 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.520 at the same time she was contacted by the FBI. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.800 The FBI had, of course, been involved in the investigation 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.400 of Patty Hurst kidnapping and had been in and out 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:30.200 of Hearst's office at Penn headquarters. In this environment where 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.800 seemingly everyone was watching everyone else, the agent running the 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.359 investigation noticed Sarah Jane and saw possibilities. 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:43.440 The FBI and Charlie Bates, who was the agent in charge, 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.359 saw Sarah Jane as somebody who was connecting with many 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.760 different people at Penn and did connect with Popeye Jackson, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.640 and they saw her as somebody because she didn't look 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:01.080 like a radical. She still very much dressed like the 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:05.400 neighbor lady or the housewife in Danville, so she could 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:10.240 sort of enter into these areas that other people couldn't. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.840 Charlie Bates approached Sarah Jane and she agreed to a meeting. 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.120 She discussed this meeting at length in a prison interview 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.280 with Playboy in nineteen seventy six. As instructed by Charlie, 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:23.600 she called a number the next morning during her coffee 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.040 break and was told to stand at a specific street 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:28.720 corner and wait for someone to come get her. She 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.040 did so and was picked up by a green car 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:35.080 with an agent named Bert Worthington in the backseat. Worthington 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.359 would become Sarah Jane's control officer. In this meeting, Moore 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.479 says she told the FBI agent that Popeye had offered 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:46.120 to be the conduit for communications between Hurst and the SLA. 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:49.920 The FBI was dubious that the SLA would trust Popeye, 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.200 but still it was not out of the question. At 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:55.400 a later meeting, they asked Sarah Jane if she knew 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.680 a particular person in the radical world. Sarah Jane said 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.640 she'd met him a couple of times. The FBI thought 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:03.760 that this was the most likely person to be able 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.800 to communicate with the SLA. Sarah Jane has never revealed 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.320 this man's name. She refers to him as Tom, and 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:13.680 his advice to her plays a critical role in her 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.280 life over the next year and a half. She told Playboy, 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:20.119 when the FBI agents told me they thought Tom was 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.080 in touch with the SLA, I had you're joking. They 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.080 assured me they were not. I agreed to work with them, 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:30.199 and Tom became my target, but that didn't mean pulling 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:32.959 away from Popeye yet. 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:38.240 I think Sarah Jane, she never said this, but other 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.520 people have thought it, was very attracted to Popeye because 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:45.639 of his power in the political community. He was just 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:50.639 a very powerful guy. And she also the FBI wanted 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.800 her to make sure she befriended him because of who 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:58.359 he was and what he knew. So she asked Popeye 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:02.920 to sort of mentor her into the radical community. And 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:08.000 so that was their relationship, and Popeye saw an opportunity 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.840 for somebody to infiltrate things that maybe other people couldn't 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:14.760 because Sarah Jane did not fit or look like the 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:19.639 mold of the radical in Berkeley or in San Francisco. 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:23.880 She just didn't fit that mold. Sarah Jane looked very 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:28.840 middle class matron, would sort of stand out as somebody 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:32.119 may be safe. They wouldn't take her seriously because she 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:35.480 didn't look the part, and in some ways that can 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:39.040 be an advantage that people may not take you seriously 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:40.959 and then say things in front of you that they 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:41.800 don't think you get. 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:48.320 Six days after, the San Francisco Examiner ran its editorial 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:51.240 calling for Popeye Jackson's parole to be kept in place. 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.240 The world got its first look at Patty Hurst since 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:57.359 the kidnapping. She had taken on a new name given 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.720 to her by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Tanya. 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:06.960 Greeting to the people, This is Tanya. On April fifteenth, 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:11.359 my comrades and I expropriated ten thousand, six hundred and 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:15.040 sixty dollars and two cents from the Sunset branch of 0:25:15.080 --> 0:25:16.119 the Hibernia Bank. 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:19.480 Eye witnesses say that as bank robberies go, this one 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:24.080 was extremely well planned. FBI agents say the girl identified 0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:27.240 as Patty Hurst stood right about here, her right hand 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:30.280 either on the trigger of the gun or near her pocket, 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:34.000 and she was apparently aiming at between five and eight 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:38.680 bank employees and customers who were ordered face down behind 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:39.639 these counters. 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:42.919 I was positioned so that I could hold customers and 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:46.880 bank personnel who were on the floor. My gun was loaded, 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:50.120 and at no time did any of my comrades intentionally 0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:51.359 point their guns at me. 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:55.200 Another one of the SLA women in her gun stood 0:25:55.240 --> 0:25:57.880 about here. Now she had a great view of all 0:25:57.960 --> 0:26:00.560 the tellers and all the other people in the banks. 0:26:01.720 --> 0:26:09.040 I am a soldier and the People's Army Patria on Wednesday, sensormos. 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:13.840 A fascius in sick place upon the life of the people. 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:20.640 For seventy one days, the nation had fretted about Patty's 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:23.760