"Terrorism," she declares. "It's a word bandied about in the courtroom and in today's media, much the way communism was in the Sixties. The judge kept calling Hall the victim. Officer Hall is big. He walked to the podium red-faced and angry. I'd never seen Officer Hall in my life, and let me tell you he is a truly terrifying spectacle. The only life in that courtroom that's threatened is mine.
"I'm in trouble. All, I guess, for revenge. Revenge for something that never happened." It's the police, she adds, who are trying to put to rest any questions about their own tactics against the SLA so many years ago. "Six people barbecued and a neighborhood terrorized is enough of an incentive for the police to set the record straight."
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Afterward, Olson autographs cookbooks. One woman encourages her to keep up the fight: "I wish you all a lot of courage in this terrible system."
7:00 p.m., November 29, 2000
THE HOMETOWN
It is eerily quiet this Wednesday evening at the Amazon Bookstore in south Minneapolis. Rows of empty chairs wait in the back of the shop, where Olson will soon speak. Mary Sutton and Barb Nimis are already there, looking rested after their whirlwind California trip. Also present are Mary Lynch and Mary Ellen Kaluza, other core members of Olson's defense committee. A few others, most of whom seem to be already acquainted with Olson's crew, mill about getting the scoop on the trip.
Olson walks in from the cold, greeting friends as she warms up. After a few minutes, the crowd at the front of the store moves back to the rows of chairs. Many of the seats remain empty, and most of the people in attendance seem to be already allied with the cause. Sutton notes this in her introduction, saying that she'd gotten lots of calls asking about the event. She shrugs her shoulders, wondering aloud where everyone is, but presses on.
It is much the same speech that Olson gave throughout her California tour, though she spices it up by reciting from a letter her doctor husband, Fred Peterson, recently received, encouraging him to pursue a new job in a "challenging environment": the state prisons in Stillwater, Rush City, or Moose Lake. "As far as I know, this is his first job offer from the prison industrial complex," she says with a laugh. She goes on to discuss the business of penitentiaries and the fast-growing number of incarcerated women, adding that she might be an addition to those statistics if the Los Angeles district attorney has his way.
Here, at this hometown event, it's clear that Olson has a well-developed support network. But it is equally clear that the impression the case makes on a Minnesota audience is of secondary importance now; what matters more is how the people of Los Angeles, her jury pool, see the situation.
In the end it seems that the case will rest on perceptions of Sara Olson herself: Is she a woman with the heart of a cop killer, or is she a victim of circumstance, and of the system? In her public appearances, Olson puts forth an image that matches neither extreme, as undisguised as her makeup-free face. She seems affable and intelligent, critical and cautious. She speaks eloquently about oppression. Unapologetically, she declares that the police, the FBI, the legal system, are unfair not just to her, but to so many others who don't have her good fortune of having a topnotch defense team, an ever-growing network of supporters, and enough money to stay out of jail.
"I'm stuck with this notoriety. I might as well make use of it," Olson explains. She has always worked for human-rights causes, aware that her country tends to gloss over its history with regard to race. "We just do not deal with it. We hide from it. That is woefully reflected in the prison industrial complex."
But her thoughts aren't always so cheery; the reality that she could spend the rest of her life in prison is never far from her consciousness. But at least in her adopted hometown, Olson can step out of her trial and back into her life. "I still do other activities. And I've got these kids. They don't let this trial get in their way at all," she says of her three daughters with a laugh. Recently, at the request of a friend, Olson acted in a local production of Medea. "I had to memorize my lines. I was glad I could focus on that."
And so Olson continues on the path through the courts--a journey whose outcome continues to be fraught with delays. Her identity varies, depending on who is looking at her. To prosecutors, she is a criminal. To activists, a hero. To supporters, a friend. Her future looms, uncertain, as she waits for a jury to select from these imposed roles. "I worry about it, of course," she says, her normally sonorous voice falling to a muted whisper. "I'm realistic."
News intern Natasha Uspensky contributed research for this story.
