From:
Michael Mischke
Date:
Mar 24 20:18 UTC
Short link
Was justice served, or cruel and unusual punishment meted out? Not
that it makes much of a difference at this point, pending a
threatened legal appeal.
Either way, Sara Jane Olson (nee Kathleen Soliah) of Highland Park is
back in a California prison that she has called home for the past six
years because of the admitted role she played in 1975 in the
Symbionese Liberation Army's attempted bombing of Los Angeles police
cars, and in the same self-styled urban guerillas' armed robbery of a
Sacramento bank that left one innocent bystander dead.
Olson, a Highland Park housewife and mother of three, had been living
underground for 23 years, as far as the authorities were concerned,
when she was arrested by FBI agents at 8:30 a.m. on June 16, 1999,
while driving her minivan near Edgcumbe Road and Niles Avenue in
Highland Park. Three years later, she pleaded guilty to both crimes
and was sentenced to two concurrent six-year prison terms. Her
sentence was subsequently extended by two years.
Olson was released from the Central California Women's Facility last
Monday. After staying for five days with family members in Palmdale,
California, she was waiting to board a flight to the Twin Cities on
Saturday when she learned that she wasn't going anywhere. The
California Corrections Department had determined that there had been
a mistake: Upon further review, she was not supposed to be released
from prison until March 17, 2009.
It's hard to fathom a corrections department having that much trouble
figuring out the correct release date for a prisoner, despite the
fact that sentencing guidelines in California have changed over the
past 30 years. It's also hard to fathom the feelings of Olson's
daughters and of her husband, United Hospital emergency room
physician Gerald "Fred" Peterson. To learn on the day of their
planned reunion in St. Paul that Olson had been reincarcerated for
another year must have been wrenching, though obviously nowhere near
as wrenching as was the death of Myrna Lee Opsahl, the innocent
bystander who was shot during the bank robbery, to her family.
The Villager published a feature story on Olson in November 1990 when
she was on a statewide tour with the one-woman play, A Woman of
Purpose, which is based on the life of Minnesota suffragette Julia
Bullard Nelson. The story stated that Olson had been active in the
women's movement since 1970.
Olson said in that story that her portrayal of Nelson showed
audiences that "people don't have to be powerless; there's a lot
they can do. But it's not easy to change things and you don't always
get respect." Olson said the message of A Woman of Purpose was that
"if you think there's something important to be changed in this
society, go out and work. Every individual can make a difference. Any
contribution is important."
Olson's "contributions" to California society may have been criminal,
but by all accounts her contributions to her adopted home of St.
Paul--as wife, mother, actress and social activist--were important.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who met Peterson 29 years ago through
common musical interests, said in that 1999 Villager story when he
was still serving as a City Council member: "Sara always struck me as
a gentle soul and very compassionate. Sara would give you the shirt
off her back if you needed it."
For better or worse, barring a successful appeal in the courts, Olson
can keep her shirt on for the next year.