All language subtitles for the_radical_story_of_patty_hearst_s01e03_the_robbery

and said, where's Patty, where's Patty?

They said they took her.

Mom, Dad, I'm okay.

We want to see how far we can motivate
them to do what we want.

Do what they say, Dad, and just do it
quickly.

In this case, it became a media frenzy.

Hearst was truly afraid that his
daughter was going to get killed. They

interested in re -educating me.

She desperately did not want to go home.
You want to do this, you're probably

going to die.

I've chosen to stay and fight.

It completely changed everything.

The granddaughter of William Randolph
Peirce was abducted by two men and a

in a bizarre kidnapping.

No ransom note, no phone calls, no word,
nothing.

The SLA is the people's army and we
fight in their interest.

The FBI said the girl on the wave with
the automatic rifle was Patricia Hurst.

Rich college girl turned armed terrorist
in a matter of weeks.

Southern California's largest manhunt
continues.

For someone my age, I've been through an
awful lot.

We don't know where she is.

Mom, Dad, I'm okay.

Regardless of whether Patricia Hearst
meant what she said or was forced to say

it, there does seem to have been a
profound change in her since the

Watching talking heads report on this,
they were stunned.

Was she forced to say it? Or as Patricia
Hearst has hinted in previous messages,

has she begun to be converted by the
revolutionary education her kidnappers

been giving her all these weeks?

Propaganda effect was...

It was almost hilarious, you know what I
mean? It was amazing.

No one expected that.

We've had her 20 years. They've had her
60 days.

And I don't believe that she's going to
change her philosophy that quickly.

It was a novel that was being told every
day.

Part of it was a ragtag group of
radicals and someone from American

nobility. It was...

poverty, which they were showing, and
great wealth.

It was also about young people fighting
against the establishment. It was an

ongoing drama, and it was unresolved.

The story of the SLA, especially the
beginning, is tactical victories,

strategic incoherence. Because they
successfully kidnapped Patty Hearst.

They successfully

organize the food delivery they
successfully recruit her to be one of

those are all real victories but to what
end

we've already stunned everybody by her
claiming that you know

now she's on our side we had to prove
that thinking about it now we were broke

we didn't have any money we were down to
the nubs Now we had another mouth to

feed forever. We had to plan some type
of an expropriation. We decided we'd

it all into one, and we would find a
bank with video cameras recording

everything.

Back then, video security systems were
new, so we found a bank that had video

cameras.

Hibernia Bank.

It was nerve -wracking.

I wish we didn't have to rob banks. I
would rather not rob banks. It was not

that much fun.

But it was necessary.

And Patricia wanted this too. She
insisted on being in the assault team.

means that's the crew that's going in
the bank doing the actual robbery.

She was carrying an M1 carbine that was
not adapted for fully automatic fire.

She was trained enough in it to be able
to use it effectively.

Me, Emily, and Willie, we were situated
across the street in case anything went

down that we had to respond to.

Most of the comrades were in the bank.

St. Q disarmed the security guard.

Ms. Moon hit the tills. Everybody else
was just making sure everybody kept

heads down.

Hattie was front and center.

It looked like she was ready to shoot.
She was ready to shoot anything that got

in the way or moved.

She just said that anybody that put
their head up, they would...

If they had blown off... She said that
herself? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Did you get the

impression that she would have used that
gun? Absolutely.

Who would have thought that Patricia
Hearst, a few months after she was

kidnapped, would be robbing a bank as a
revolutionary act?

That bank robbery surveillance
photograph was pretty indicative of what

happened, and that was that Patty Hearst
had participated in an armed bank

robbery of the Hibernia Bank.

At that moment, this one -line story
about an heiress who'd been

kidnapped by crazy revolutionaries from
the 60s changed in the blink of an eye

with that photo of Patty with a gun in
that bank.

There was initially, in those first
couple of days, some debate. She must

been forced to do it.

Seeing Patty in the bank with a gun, if
it cemented anything, it was just...

She's being disgraced and manipulated
and coerced in a theatrical, cruel way.

Patricia's performance in that bank
robbery only solidified what we already

suspected about her.

Somewhat of a revolutionary savant. We
kidnapped a freak.

People freeze in certain situations.

Patricia Harris is not the kind of
person that freezes ever.

I think she was spectacular.

And I think it was obvious. It was
obvious to DeVries.

Everybody had a sidearm, and her
performing admirably in a bank robbery

the gun that was originally the sidearm
of the security guard at the Ibernia

Bank. Now she has a sidearm as well.

Patricia was a 100 % equal member in
this cell. She had the same

responsibilities we did. We weren't
making her do anything against her will.

At that point, it was against her will
to go home.

She is still a kidnapped victim. She was
taken away against her will.

And psychologically, she's a victim of
thought control by terrorists.

And all I can do is hope and pray that
God will bring her home again.

After observing her mother, Catherine,
suggest that she had been a subject or

victim of mind control.

She was offended by it because it was
another conflict between her and her

and she wanted to prove her wrong.

Greetings to the people.

This is Tanya.

On April 15th, my comrades and I
expropriated $10 ,660

.02 from the Sunset Branch of the
Hibernia Bank.

I was positioned so that I could hold
customers and bank personnel who were on

the floor.

My gun was loaded, and at no time did
any of my comrades intentionally point

their guns at me.

As for being brainwashed, the idea is
ridiculous to the point of being beyond

belief.

For those people who still believe that
I am brainwashed or dead, I see no

reason to further defend my position.

I am a soldier in the people's army.

The

Patty

Hearst story was a huge national story
from the day of the kidnapping.

But what made it even bigger was that
Patty Hearst turned her back on

her life of privilege.

And she became a metaphor for young
people in America everywhere.

People given opportunities, given the
promise of America, and deciding instead

to turn against it and even overthrow
it.

There were posters. People supported
her, not just in Berkeley, but

So there was sort of a romance about it.

took on a life of its own.

As embarrassing as the situation was to
the FBI after the kidnapping, it was

much worse after the robbery of the
Hibernia Bank.

Because here you had a half dozen people
showing off for the cameras in broad

daylight.

We've just almost turned that area
upside down.

I'm going to make an admission, which
hurts.

We don't know where she is.

The robbery was successful.

We're happy that we got some money, but
it was a subdued scene in many ways.

With few resources, we had to figure out
what we were going to do next. We

couldn't just sustain this for very long
if we had to rob banks all the time to

live.

We had the police in every jurisdiction
in the Bay Area wanting to be the ones

that caught us or killed us.

Police were mobilized not only to deal
with us, but they were dealing with

zebra killers, you know. The zebra
killings were some of the most notorious

crimes in American history.

You had a group of black Muslims, and
they grabbed people off the street

and not only murdered them, but tortured
some of them solely because they were

white. All of this was going on while
the kidnapping was happening.

putting San Francisco in something close
to complete panic.

The shootings began last night around 7
.30 in the Haight -Ashbury district. By

10 p .m., four persons lay dead, all
white.

Cops were doing stop and frisk, and so
black males walking down the street, and

if a cop rolled by, they'd stop them and
put them on the wall and frisk them to

make sure they didn't have weapons or
whatever.

The freaks couldn't go outside at all
with this kind of a situation.

The pigs and the fascist media, had by
their slick trickery, attempted to link

the SLA with the so -called zebra
killings.

The next lie that we expect to hear is
that Sin Q is the zebra killer, and this

will be to give even greater pig
justification to continue the harassment

disarming of the people.

We realized that we just had to get the
hell out of there. That was not a cool

place to be.

Patricia was encouraged.

to reconsider going home. Now, she'd
already robbed a bank and burned a

of bridges with that. It wasn't
impossible for her to wiggle out of that

You might survive it.

It might be better for us to not have
you with us.

She hated that idea.

We couldn't go on living as nine people
in a cell.

The only way to really do it was to do
it in groups of threes.

I'd hoped it would be me, Emily, and
Angela that could do this together, but

didn't work out.

In the end, Emily and I got stuck with
Patricia.

And so I think it was DeFreeze, Angela,
and Camilla, and Nancy,

Willie, and Ms. Moon.

So we went to L .A.

DeFreeze was familiar with it. He lived
there. None of the rest of us had ever

lived there.

Acting on a tip, the FBI raided an
apartment in San Francisco and once

found itself a few steps behind the SLA.

Inside, authorities found the keys to
one of the getaway cars used in a recent

bank robbery and the clothes supposedly
worn in the same holdup.

According to the apartment manager, the
group moved out a week ago.

When we went to L .A., we only had time
to get in one place so that we could

regroup and then move out to our other
parts of the country.

Ms. Moon and Nancy were able to snag a
house.

on 84th Street in the ghetto, which is
really ridiculous.

It was like six women and one black guy
and two white guys, and it just looked

like peculiar.

We decided that we would send one of the
teams, and it was decided it would be

me, Emily, and Hurst, and get some gear
that we needed before we all split up.

And it just so happened that one of the
vans got an illegal parking ticket.

We took the ticket with us to pay.

Patricia and Emily and I had all of our
weapons, all of our ammo.

In case something happened while we were
gone, we had everything that we needed.

One of the places that we went to get
some supplies was a male sporting goods

store in Englewood.

And the plan was that Patricia, she
would remain in the van. The keys to the

were in the ignition.

She was under no special controls, and
we trusted her.

Emily and I go in the store. We grab a
bunch of stuff that we're going to

purchase.

If she had wanted to leave, she could
have managed that easily.

She could have escaped if she'd wanted
to.

So what happened was this.

At one point, I saw a shotgun bandolier.

And Emily's weapon of choice is a 12
-gauge shotgun, and the shotgun would

like, five or six rounds.

So I thought it would be a good idea to
get her this shotgun bandolier where she

could hold about 25 rounds.

And then all of a sudden, I got
paranoid.

I was nervous about buying the
bandoliers, you know, the combat

so I was nervous about buying it. And I
set it back down.

Everything's smooth, and we're getting
ready to leave. We pay $30, $40.

And as I'm walking out the door, this
young black guy comes up behind me. He

yells, hey, Bill.

And I believe to my very fibers he's
referring to me.

And, you know, my heart starts racing. I
turn around.

He says, sir, I need you to come back
inside.

I need to search you.

Turns out his boss is a guy named Bill
Hewitt, I think. And so he's calling his

boss to back him up. He saw me with the
bandolier, and he didn't see me put the

bandolier back on the shelf. I ain't
going back in the store. No fucking way.

This guy Bill Hewitt and the black kid,
they jump on me and we're rolling in the

gutter.

And before I know it, I have one
handcuff on my left wrist.

Patricia looks up.

I figured, you know, she's going to lay
low. There's nothing she can do.

We're busted.

We're on a pile on the street.

In the few seconds that I'm resisting.

Patricia looks up.

You know, was she going to run over and
rescue us?

She's got the keys in the van. I just
assumed she'd lay low and then fade and

back to the safe house.

She was decisive.

The first rounds hit right next to my
head.

I thought I was going to get shot.

He was aiming really close to us.

She didn't hold the barrel steady.

She fired off the rest of the rounds in
that magazine, and then she picked up

her weapon and started firing rounds
from a 30 -round clip that she had in

weapon.

The kid is hiding behind me and holding
on to me, and I told him, I said, hey,

dude, you better get out of here. He
says, right.

As soon as he leaves me, Emily and I get
up and haul ass and run across Imperial

Highway and get in the van.

The black kid, he pulls out a .32. He
starts shooting at us, and this guy's

insane.

Last thing I ever expected when I'm
about to be arrested is that she is

rescue me.

Patricia Hearst had more balls than
anybody I've ever known.

She saved my fucking life, and she
didn't have to.

We get in the van, and we try to haul
ass in a VW bus.

And it's taken forever.

We come upon, almost immediately, like a
Pontiac.

Looked like a nice car.

The guy in the driver's seat, he was a
large man.

And I say, look, brother, I really hate
to do this, but I got to take your car.

And he looks up at me.

He says, you ain't taking my fucking
car.

And I'm going, oh, God, what am I going
to do here? I can't beat this guy up

because he's too big.

Emily, she racks around in her shotgun
and she says, get out of the fucking

please.

We immediately tried to get everything
out of the VW van and put it into the

Pontiac and we took off.

We hadn't gone but a block and a half
and the car just absolutely stops.

Holy shit.

And right here in front of me, two black
men standing in a driveway.

And I say to them, look, I'm really
sorry, gentlemen, but I need to take

car. We're with the SLA and the cops are
chasing us. We assumed if we revealed

ourselves to be the SLA after the food
program and everything, that people

feel calm, that they would realize that,
you know, us approaching them was not

an aggressive act.

He looks at me and he goes, oh, sure.
And he reaches in and gives me the keys

his car in his pocket, right?

So we get our stuff from the Pontiac and
we move that into this car. We left.

We made it out of there, we beat the
cops out of there, and we're gone.

The shootout at Mel's is, for me, the
single most important piece of

evidence that Patty Hearst had joined
the SLA.

Patty Hearst is no longer a captive, but
she is a participant in the terrorism

of the SLA.

I know a lot of people made a big thing
of...

The fact that she sprayed Mel's sporting
goods with bullets when she could have

jumped in the car and gotten away.

I don't think that's as definitive as
other people do.

It's not that simple.

But she had changed.

On some level, she thought she was
Tanya.

By this time, this is three, four hours
since the altercation at Mel's.

And we knew we couldn't go back to the
safe house.

We're driving a stolen car. We couldn't
keep driving it around, so we had to

figure out another way.

In 1974, I was 18 years old. I was a
senior in high school. I had a Ford

Econoline van for sale.

About 7 o 'clock Thursday night, and the
door knocked on my front door, and it

was a woman wanting to test drive my
van.

So I said, sure. I just tossed her the
keys. I got in the passenger seat.

We just drove one block and turned
right, and then she stopped.

and she said, can my friends come along?

All I noticed was William Harris getting
out of the car, because as he got out,

there was something bulging out of his
jacket, and opened up his coat, and sure

enough he had a machine gun, said they
were with the SLA and they needed to

borrow my van.

But as soon as he said SLA, I knew who
they were.

Patty got in the van behind William
Harris, and he pointed to her and he

you know who this is?

I shook my head no.

I didn't recognize her. She had a black
curly wig on.

But he said, this is Tanya. And he kind
of smiled.

And as soon as he learned she was
Patricia Hearst, he couldn't believe

had happened to him. I said, wow, my
friends aren't going to believe this

I never really felt that fearful for my
life.

We even started talking sports.

And that's when I told them that I had a
baseball game the next day.

We were concerned about him. We wanted
him to be able to go on his way and play

in his playoff game.

I wanted him to be calm, and so we were
very charming and nice to him.

Patricia kind of was flirting with him.

Patricia and Tom are talking.

Patricia takes out her gun and takes the
bullets out of it, and she gives him a

gun, and she explains to him why we were
robbing banks.

Patty opened up, and she told me that
she was a willing participant in the

robbery.

When Patty talked about Mel's Sporting
Goods store, she was very proud of how

she freed, she called them her comrades.

She was truly one of them.

Bill had a handcuff on one wrist. They
stopped, got a hacksaw, and so I

cut through the pin.

It worked.

I cut the handcuff off of him. He was so
relieved. He gave me a big hug, bear

hug, and then Patty actually gave me a
kiss on the cheek.

We had already had a system of
rendezvous points that were set up just

.A. area.

They had it planned to meet their other
comrades at the Century Drive -In.

Their signal was a coffee cup on the top
of the vehicle.

We bought food, we fed Tom, and waited.

The SLA suspects entered this sporting
goods store and they were caught

stealing. They ran, firing as many as 30
shots from a .30 caliber machine gun.

One suspect dropped this revolver, later
traced to Emily Harris, a member of the

SLA. Seeing the news of the Mel's
shootout, the six others realize the

LAPD knows they're in town.

So they figure they need to get out of
where they had been with Bill, Emily,

Patty, and they start looking for
somewhere else to go.

They're on 84th Street, and they drive
through.

South Central, and looking for a new
place to stay.

And they find a house in the middle of
the night of May 16th on 54th Street,

a few miles away.

We realized that they're not coming.

We drove to the hills.

You know, we discussed our next move.

Emily or Patricia possibly tried to
imagine what we left behind.

And we realized, we actually realized
that we left the parking ticket behind.

We knew that the parking ticket was
going to connect it to the street that

house was on.

Big mistake.

Big, horrible mistake.

In May of 1974, I was one of the
reporters on the staff of KNXT.

In Los Angeles, we used to call
ourselves CBS Channel 2 News.

The morning of May 17th, I just cruise
in to the station, and I usually get in

between 7 .30 and 8, sometime like that.

When Mel's Sporting Goods happened and
the shootout happened with Patty Hearst,

we figured the SLA is in L .A.

I got on the story that morning.

We got the sense that the LAPD was going
to get these guys.

They had a reputation for cracking
heads, and unfortunately, not all, but

of the heads deserved cracking.

They were using this new unit called
SWAT, and they had, up to that point,

able to pretty much use SWAT very
effectively.

In May of 1974, I was a police officer
working for the city of Los Angeles and

assigned to the SWAT team.

Special Weapons and Tactics. It was an
acronym developed by Darrell Gates, who

was the deputy chief at the time. The
first SWAT team was LAPD.

The LAPD started the SWAT team right
after the 1965 riots.

And they wanted station defense teams.

And they would respond to their police
station in the event of a riot and

that police station.

That was their primary purpose at the
time.

So they trained them to be high ground
security for patrol cops who were

ground level during violent uprisings,
which were happening about every other

day back then.

There was one riot after another.

On May 17, 1974, I was sound asleep in
bed. I get a call from Metropolitan

Division, the desk there, and they asked
me to respond to 84th and Vermont with

my partner.

We responded, met with the supervisor
there, who was Ron McCarthy, and he told

us what our job was going to be.

The FBI, they believed the SLA would be
in or around that location because their

getaway vehicle had a parking ticket in
it. They were going to try to locate the

SLA, and they were going to go to that
address first.

We were called to join the FBI to help
them.

be present and if they needed us to be
plugged in anywhere we would in 1974

lapd swat was probably the only swat
team in the country that

could have handled something like this
the fbi swat team was not totally formed

there were wannabes the fbi swat team
was

trying to get their act together about
how they wanted to do this because These

were dangerous suspects in there. The
special agent in charge of the FBI

was there, who was a pain in the neck.

He was yelling at the FBI SWAT guys,
just go up and kick the doors, hurry up,

hurry up.

They hurried up, and they ran across the
backyard and booted the back door and

ran in.

The SLA, they were gone.

Had there been an SLA member in there
with one of those SLA weapons, there

have been a lot of dead FBI agents.

They had still left thousands of rounds
of ammunition they couldn't take with

them. Their propaganda, a lot of the
stuff that they handed out. There was a

radio in there tuned to police calls in
L .A.

Also a watch list that showed that they
always had somebody up and about.

24 -7, so that you weren't going to
surprise them.

Deputy Chief Gates was there, and I went
up to him and said, you know, if that

idiot, meaning the special agent in
charge of the FBI, is anywhere, we don't

want anything to do with that idiot.

He said, don't worry, you won't have to.
The FBI had been playing the heavy role

in San Francisco, but by the time they
got to L .A., It was LAPD's turf. The

LAPD prevailed and basically took the
lead in it.

When I woke up Friday morning, it was
about 7 o 'clock in the morning, and the

two girls, they were standing up in the
van, and they knew that their next step

was they needed another mode of
transportation.

That's when I was kind of hoping this
ordeal would be over, you know, soon.

Emily and Patricia decide to set up as
if they're hitchhiking somewhere.

and they're going to take the first car
that picks them up.

And sure enough, here comes a Cadillac.
When they get in the car and they take

them hostage.

They tossed me my keys, told me to stay
there for about 10 minutes, so that's

what I did.

Got in the Cadillac and we took off.

LAPD, they were absolutely energized and
engaged.

I mean, they were mobilized. They were
determined, and they were closing in,

they were doing a good job of getting
information.

People began to come up to us and say,
hey, I saw this, I saw that. I saw this

black person and this white person. Two
white brothers went out to the blue van

and left in it and came back. And one
was in the blue and one was in the red

white one. That's all I've seen. As the
day progressed, we literally felt a

tightening noose.

The target got smaller and smaller and
smaller and more defined, and they

finally had it narrowed down to a few
houses.

We looked at each other and we said, I
wouldn't want the LAPD after me.

Police and FBI agents used tear gas
earlier today when they thought they had

suspect surrounded in a South Los
Angeles home. But when police entered,

found the structure deserted.

With the incident that happened earlier
in the morning, LAPD did not want the

SLA to get away.

We flooded the area with police cars,
hoping to keep them wherever they were

they were still in the area.

That day, like any given day in the city
of Los Angeles, there was probably 500

police officers working the street. At
least 150 of those officers were

around the perimeter of that location.

A patrol perimeter unit.

was approached by an elderly lady.

The woman said, are you looking for
those white folks with guns?

And they said, yes, since they're in my
daughter -in -law's house. And she said,

it's five houses from the corner.

I was approaching the fourth house, and
as I got to the front door, I heard a

voice. And the voice was that, I
believe, to be of St. Q.

I was right up against the house.

I was right up against the house and he
was ordering people to do things inside

of the house, like to move the
furniture, to barricade the front door.

immediately contacted the team at the
rear and I said, the fourth house is the

suspect's house.

That ironed it for us.

We knew we were at the right place.

So we deployed right away. We would not
have done it that way originally.

But because they had eluded the FBI
earlier in the morning, we decided to go

ahead and go and evacuate houses as we
approached them.

We were scrambling to evacuate the
people that hadn't evacuated yet.

Five square blocks of the city that were
contained and the homes were evacuated.

My snipers were up in front. I had
snipers at the rear.

We had 19 SWAT officers that were
actually surrounding the house.

The media was every place.

This is Bill Diaz of 55 and Compton.
We're going to move down the street and

to get a better picture for you. Back in
1974, most TV stations in the United

States were using film.

And we'd go out with film canisters.

And then the film would have to be run
back to the station and processed and

hope that it... I mean, you really
couldn't cover breaking news with film.

We were experimenting with a brand new
form of camera.

We kind of dubbed it the minicam. It was
a portable camera that allowed you to

do videotape and live coverage of news
stories from the scene. Right where we

are now.

as well as the other location.

I haven't been able to confirm that
report as yet. So we were basically

this whole new technique of covering
news.

Why is anyone in the vicinity of 55th
and Compton to stay the heck away from

here? Because it's not a place you want
to be tonight. I'll tell you that,

ladies and gentlemen.

We're trying to figure out what our next
move is.

And on the radio, we learned that the
last safe house that we had together had

been hit by the police.

We didn't know where to go. We know the
cops are, like, now closing in, and

we've got to hole up somewhere. We can't
be driving around.

So we decide the place where we would be
least conspicuous would be in a heavily

touristed place.

And so we choose Disneyland.

And as soon as we get our stuff in the
motel, we turn on the TV, they've

surrounded the house on 54th Street.

It's not a place you want to be tonight,
I can tell you that, ladies and

gentlemen. I was at the corner of the
house, and I was kind of on my knees,

kneeling down up against the house.

And I notified my lieutenant of what I
heard and the fact that they were

barricading themselves.

Jerry Brackley, he was the sergeant in
front, and he gave an announcement 23

separate times.

To the people in the house at 1466 East
54th Street, you're surrounded.

We want you to surrender and walk out.

Basically, that was repeated over.

And over and over.

And eventually, two people came out. A
little boy, about eight, nine years old,

and an elderly man.

When he was asked, hey, who's in there?

He lied and said, there's only an old
black lady in there.

Then they interviewed the little boy.

And they asked him, who's inside the
house? He says, a bunch of white people

with guns.

Several people in there, white people
and black people, and they have bullets

across their chest like this.

And a radio transmission comes off for
the team to deploy tear gas.

One round goes into the side of that
house.

LAPD did not fire first.

We fired the tear gas round.

That was to cause them to surrender.

That the gunfire erupted.

It was amazing.

It basically scared the hell out of me.

And I dropped to the ground.

I mean, I tried to dig a hole in the
cement.

The guys that were out in front thought
that I was hit. I get up on my knee and

I put my thumb up saying, I'm okay.

Swear to God on my grandchildren's life,
none of them made any effort to

surrender in any way.

You know, make our day. If that's what
you want, then confrontation is

the police will do.

It was all on.

The weapons that we're using were

M1 carbines. An M1 carbine is capable of
firing 900 rounds a minute.

They had converted it to fire 1 ,300
rounds per minute.

We were outgunned. They had better
weaponry. It was so many rounds going

fast that it sounded, I described it as
like hearing a bedsheet tear. It was

buzz.

We heard the first barrage of gunfire
from the SLA house.

and we're about a block away.

Well, there's an alleyway that runs
parallel to Compton all the way down to

54th. And I grab the microphone, and I
grab my cameraman, and we start running

down the alleyway, unspooling the cable,
you know, in this bulky minicam.

Okay, we're right here in the corner of
54th and Compton now.

We're about across the street and two
houses away from where all the shooting

has been going on. We go straight
through to Compton, and I can see the

the SLA house.

Now, if you look close, you'll see fire
going both in and out. See that rag

bobbing up and down in the gunfire?

Okay, there's an enormous amount of fire
being concentrated on that yellow

house. We were too energized yet to be
scared.

At one point, there's a policeman
standing by a telephone pole. Bob

of our other reporters, joined me at the
scene.

He came up with the craziest stunt of
the day.

Can you indicate to us which side is the
police target? Are they aiming to go

this way or that direction? Which way is
it?

They're going this way.

Are we in that direction?

All right. And then all of a sudden, we
hit.

Close as I have.

Look out there. Literally, I could feel
the breeze from the bullet go right by

my ear, and it whacked into the building
right behind us.

Look out there. That's bad. That's bad.

We just got missed by a bullet.

It went to the house right beside us
here.

That's when we got scared.

We better get out of here, you guys.
This is incredible.

This shootout was incredibly dramatic,
but what made it even...

crazier and even more of a national
obsession was that everyone thought

Hearst was inside the house.

So this fight was being watched around
the world with everyone thinking that

this era is about to be murdered on live
television.

We don't want to kill everybody in the
house.

We don't shoot at a house because we
want to kill the people there. We want

stop the gunfire.

The gunfire that's going
indiscriminately throughout the

other people outside that are not
involved, that are trying to get away

This was urban guerrilla warfare.

There was this sense of, like, we've got
to suppress this. We've got to make

this stop. That day, I knew that the
whole focus of the police was to stop

shooting.

These were people intent on killing as
many people as they could, and they

didn't care how many innocent people got
killed.

We hand through tear gas grenades.

They had chemical agents' masks, and
they withstood all of the chemical

we put in there, and we put in a bunch.

Then the house caught on fire.

They just shooed the people away.

We're trying to bring you...

A shot of the burning building.

There's still an exchange of fire.

And Jerry made announcements again and
said, hey, the house is on fire.

You need to surrender.

I saw the door open and I took my weapon
and I aimed at the doorway.

And then I saw Christine Johnson, I
believe her name was. And she came out

her hands up.

And I ordered a ceasefire.

And it stopped.

And then she walked out to safety.

And she moved across and was taken into
custody by the detectives there.

I didn't know who she was. You don't
shoot at a person that's surrendering.

Everybody in that house had the same
opportunity she did.

And then there was black smoke and it
was obviously the place was on fire.

And, you know, and it was basically time
for them to stop and they wouldn't

stop. There is still fire coming from
inside the Target house, which is across

the street, as I said before.

Patty Hearst was not in my mind at all.

My safety and the safety of my officers
was more important to me than whether

she was in there or not. If she's in
there, that's her problem, not mine.

I did what I had to do.

If she was in there, God willed it.

May 17, 1974 is the worst day of my
life. The house is burning and they're

shooting. I think they were that
committed or that crazy.

When they recovered that body, everybody
thought that was Patty Hearst. We had

hundreds of agents covering leads. It's
as though they'd disappear.

Greetings to the people. This is Tanya.
I know what I have to do.

She was on a mission.

How can you not love someone like that?

Death to the fascist insect that preys
upon the life of the people.