The Murder of Marcus Foster
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READ THE LEFTIST RAMPART MAGAZINE CONDEMNATION OF THE SLA ASSASSINATION OF MARCUS FOSTER fixed link 11-20-01
Of the possible victims of the SLA's first "action," Marcus Foster seemed one of the least likely. Popular among the people, Foster had made major strides toward cleaning up and reforming the Oakland School District.
Marcus Foster first gained notoriety for his spectacularly successful transformation of two of Philadelphia's worst schools. He brought new school pride and enthusiasm to the students and faculty, brought parents and local businesses into school activities, and pressured the Board of Education into funding new programs and facilities. Foster was Philadelphia's Man of the Year for 1968 and received prestigious awards from the NAACP and other organizations.
Although Foster was a strict, no-nonsense educator, he was no conservative and no political suckup. He criticized the institutional racism of the school system and worked hard to both celebrate ethnic diversity and have it reflected in the positions of power within the educational hierarchy.
Faced with a soaring dropout rate, nonexistent school morale, and plummeting proficiency scores, the Oakland School District sought out Foster to fill the position of superintendent. Foster took Oakland by storm.
His reforms were as effective as they were drastic. He decentralized the 90-school school system into three separate regions and gave each an associate superintendent with a local office. He brought about previously unheard of student, parent, and teacher involvement and reach out across racial lines in the diverse Oakland community. Proficiency scores soared, the dropout rate fell, and morale was boosted radically.
Foster hired his former associate from Philadelphia, Robert Blackburn, as his deputy. Blackburn had always been on the cutting edge of the civil rights movement within the field of education. In 1955 he was the only white student at the otherwise all black Hampton Institute in Virginia. From 1960 to 1964 he served as executive director for the Citizens Committee on Public Education, a Philadelphia pressure group credited with being the primary force behind a major reform of the Philadelphia school administration. He also served as the northern regional director of the Peace Corps in Somalia from 1964 until 1967, supervising teacher training and public health programs.
Philadelphia police kept a close eye on Blackburn, considering him a "subversive" due to his involvement with the civil rights movement, protesting through civil disobedience, and working with the Peace Corps. Nevertheless he had earned a reputation as a progressive and effective educator. When he returned from East Africa in 1967 he was appointed director of Philadelphia's Office of Integration and Inter-group Education. When Marcus Foster was hired as superintendent of the Oakland School District, he asked Blackburn to join him.
The Motive
Among the many reforms implemented by Marcus Foster, the two zeroed in on by the SLA as reasons for assassinating him were among the most insignificant and misunderstood changes of his entire program.
When Foster arrived from Philadelphia, Oakland students had been carrying school IDs for three years. The only reaction from students regarding the ID cards was positive--they appreciated the student discounts available to students with ID. As a cost-cutting measure Foster discontinued the use of ID cards. A year after discontinuing the ID cards, a young girl was stabbed to death by a non-student at Oakland Technical High School. Teachers, parents, and student leaders called for the reinstatement of the student ID program to prevent the presence of non-students on school campuses. Foster reinstated the ID program, but with procedures drawn up to quell liberal protest: Cards were not numbered, students were not required to carry them, and no copy of the photograph taken for the ID was retained by the school.
The second issue was based on a complete misconception. The SLA, in communiqués following Foster's murder, claimed that Foster had been behind a campaign to put police officers on school campuses. This perception had originally been put forth by radicals speaking through the Coalition to Save Our Schools, a small parent group who were heavily influenced by Venceremos. In reality, Foster never had suggested or supported the idea of police in the schools. In reality, Foster had denied, vehemently and repeatedly, that he planned to put police in Oakland schools. Indeed, he had specifically stated that paramilitary tactics would NOT help.
The rumour that Foster planned to put police in the schools was born from a suggestion that civilians would be hired to patrol schools. Neither armed nor dangerous, they were meant only to provide an adult presence to keep an eye out for potential trouble. When one draft of the proposal suggested that these civilians have a security or law enforcement background, Foster refused to put the proposal through until that clause was removed.
Foster wanted no sort of paramilitary force of any kind in the halls of his schools. When Black Panthers, still under the mistaken impression that Foster planned to use police, approached him and suggested that he use Panthers instead, he told them that if he got any money for security in the schools, he would hire parents to patrol the halls.
Still, some groups screamed "police state" and "fascism." It seemed that no amount of talk or action from Foster would convince them that he wasn't going to turn their schools into prisons.
The Murder
After a long day's work on Tuesday, November 6, 1973, Robert Blackburn and Marcus Foster left the Oakland Board of Education building. It was General Election Day in California, and they were hurrying to get to the polls.
As they approached Blackburn's Chevy Vega in the back parking lot, they saw three figures leaning against the building. Blackburn was unlocking the passenger door for Foster when the shots rang out.
Blackburn was hit in the back by a shotgun blast as Foster was shot eight times. Foster's autopsy revealed that five cyanide-tipped slugs had entered his body in the back, two in front, and one in the leg. His heart had been punctured and he was killed instantly.
Robert Blackburn was rushed to Highland Hospital where emergency surgery saved his life. As he was taken away he was calling to staffers, giving them instructions on how to run the schools until he and Foster returned. He told one member of his staff to cancel a trip to Los Angeles, as he would be needed to fill in. It was not until an hour later, upon finding out that his friend had been killed, that he stopped thinking about his work and asked to be given something to put him under.
The Aftermath
Oakland was in a state of shock. Thousands crowded the memorial services that were held in every Oakland church. The Black Panthers, headquartered in Oakland, suggested that fascist elements were behind the murders, and demanded the apprehension of the murderers and of those who had planned the assassination. Everyone from the US government to Neo-Nazis were blamed for the tragedy.
Racially confused descriptions of the killers were hastily released. The original reports varied from "three suspects, all the same height" to "two black men." The next morning things became even more muddled. "Hippie-length hair, dressed identically in dark pants, denim jackets and dark knit watch caps. Possibly black, possibly white, possibly latin, possibly a multi-racial group." One witness reported that one of the sounded as if he or she were "giggling" as the trio fled the scene.*
On November 7, the day after the killing, Berkeley radio station KPFA received "Communiqué No. 1" from the Symbionese Liberation Army, claiming responsibility for the killing. In a rambling and paranoid document, the SLA revealed its total ignorance of and lack of research into Marcus Foster, Robert Blackburn, their histories, and the programs that they had implemented and planned to implement in Oakland schools.
The people were not happy. The Left rejected the SLA as out-of-touch with The Struggle. From the Black Panthers, from the Weather Underground, from the streets, and from inside the walls of California's prisons came shock, confusion, and outrage.
Inside the SLA
Thero Wheeler had begun to distance himself from the rest of the SLA during the planning of Foster's assassination. DeFreeze pressured him to say because, even though he had finally been able to rally support for the SLA (prior to the Foster murder), he did not want to lose Wheeler's connections in the radical community.
As the Foster murder became imminent, Wheeler moved to Redwood City with his girlfriend, Mary Alice Siem. Cinque and Zoya visited them to discuss their situation. According to Wheeler, Cin and Zoya became angry when Wheeler would not give in to their pressure and threatened them with a gun. Siem fled to her parents' home and Wheeler skipped town.
At the time of the Foster murder, many members of the SLA had already gone underground. DeFreeze, Soltysik, Little, and Perry lived undercover in Clayton, a middle-class East Bay suburb, while the Harrises, Atwood, and Hall still maintained their jobs and lived above ground.
The Clayton house was rented by Little and Perry under the names of George and Nancy DeVoto. Neighbours thought them strange and unfriendly, and gossiped about the facts that they always kept the house closed and shuttered, and that "George" sometimes introduced himself as "Bob." Still, the suspicions never went beyond neighbourhood gossip.
On November 12, 1973, police and reporters were summoned to the DeVoto house for an event totally unrelated to the activities of the SLA. A sixteen-year-old boy followed Perry home from a local convenience store and accosted her at the door of her house with a gun in an apparent robbery/rape attempt. The gun went off, attracting the attention of neighbours, who forced Perry to call the police. A news photographer took what was to become a very famous photo of Nancy, who, in the picture, is obviously unhappy about being photographed.
The Clayton house served as the SLA's new training ground and propaganda factory. They rehearsed their "actions" with BB guns and studied everything from Maoist theory to methods of assassination. They also spent hours drawing up plans and writing communiqués.
The Capture of Bo and Osceola
On January 10, 1974, Officer Dave Duge stopped a suspicious van which had been cruising slowly through Concord, a neighbourhood mere blocks away from the Clayton house. The driver, Russell Little (using false ID under the name "Robert Scalise") and his passenger, Joe Remiro, explained nervously that they were looking for the DeVoto residence.
Although their ID checked out, the dispatcher reported that there was no DeVoto residence in the area. Duge asked Remiro to step out of the vehicle, and Remiro came out firing. A short gun battle ensued in which neither was hit. The van took off into the darkness, as did Remiro on foot.
After a short chase, "Scalise" was caught and placed under arrest. Upon frisking him, the officers discovered that he had been hit in the shoulder by one of the shots meant for Remiro. He was taken immediately to Contra Costa hospital. A search of the van produced weapons and stacks of SLA flyers. The seven-headed cobra emblazoned on the head of each leaflet drew an immediate connection with the Foster murder, and the search for Remiro intensified.
Four hours later Remiro was spotted ducking between two houses. He surrendered without incident. Upon searching him, officers found the Walter PP .380 automatic that had been used in the murder of Marcus Foster.
As soon as Remiro and Little were booked into Concord City Jail, an extra shift of guards was called in to surround the building. No one got in or out without being thoroughly checked. The two were transferred almost immediately to Contra Costa County Jail, where armed guards on the roof were joined by extra street patrols. New and more serious charges were filed against the pair, bringing their bail to almost three-quarters-of-a-million dollars each. Not wanting to allow any chance for escape or for an assisted breakout, it was decided that Remiro and Little would be transferred to California's most secure penitentiary, San Quentin. This move was unprecedented, as suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and only the guilty are housed in penitentiaries.
By January 12, Remiro and Little were locked away in San Quentin's Adjustment Center, the "jail within a jail" where George Jackson was gunned down. Prison officials stated that Remiro and Little were placed in this super-secure setting to keep them safe from reprisals in the name of Marcus Foster. They were held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in "strip cells" with almost no furniture and only a hole in the floor to serve as a toilet.
On January 18, Remiro and Little attempted to release a communiqué, which was seized by prison authorities. A copy finally reached the Phoenix newspaper, which published it in full. It read in part:
"We are not guilty of crime and will not become so by failure to stand as politically conscious and socially motivated men. Our crime is the realization that as revolutionaries it is our duty to totally support and recognize all those struggling for national liberation and the construction of a more humane and egalitarian society. This is our only crime. We have already been convicted and sentenced to on their worst hell-holes, San Quentin's 'Adjustment Center' even before railroading us thru court. But we still grow stronger every day--the spirit of Lolita Lebron and George Jackson thrives here! We feel like the rabbit who was thrown into the briar patch for punishment."
Fire at the Clayton Safehouse
On the day following the arrest of Remiro and Little, still undiscovered by the authorities, the SLA set about covering their tracks and evacuating to a secure location. Neighbours reported seeing Patricia Soltysik leaving the house on foot in the afternoon. They noted that she was "dressed up" in a skirt, rather than her usual sweater and slacks. At about 6:15 Willie Wolfe's gold Buick was seen screeching away from the garage, so quickly that it bottomed out loudly at the end of the driveway. Moments later an explosion shook the house.
The carefully planned arson went awry when the explosion failed to shatter the windows of the house. Although copious amount of gasoline and gunpowder were distributed throughout the premises, the lack of oxygen reduced what should have been a conflagration to what fire fighters refer to as a "flashover fire," which did little more than scorch everything and peel paint. Firemen called to the scene were able to very quickly douse the smouldering remains of the fire.
Police did not realize the treasure trove of evidence they had accidentally discovered until it was too late. Neighbourhood children and quick-thinking reporters managed to ransack the unsecured scene long before detectives arrived to go through the heavily-littered residence. Even still, massive amount of ammunition, bomb-making equipment, literature, and SLA propaganda were recovered from the scene. With the reporters eventually turning over their loot to the authorities, law enforcement agencies gained their first solid look into the structure and plans of the SLA.
Among the papers found at the scene were several references to the plan to kidnap Patty Hearst. Surveillance notes and the phrase "arrest warrant issued" were ignored by authorities entirely, and Hearst was not warned of any danger. Next to her name on one page was scrawled "on the night of the full moon, January 7." Patricia would be kidnapped on the night of the next full moon, February 4th.
After having evacuated the Clayton safehouse, the remainder of the SLA, with the exception of Camilla "Gabi" Hall, went quickly underground. Angela Atwood and the Harrises hastily abandoned the apartment they had been sharing, leaving behind a large amount of damaging evidence, including the packaging from many of the weapons they had purchased in order to arm their revolution.
From their new hideout, Nancy Ling Perry released her epic "Letter from Fahizah," a remarkably inaccurate and desperate document meant to both legitimize the activities of the SLA and refute the media reports that portrayed the SLA as incompetent, adventurist amateurs. She claimed that she had not meant to destroy the Clayton safehouse, but rather intended to eradicate fingerprints. This claim is highly dubious, considering the fact that the evidence left behind was far more damaging than any fingerprints could have been. She couched the entire letter in terms that were designed to make the SLA look far larger and more organized than it actually was, claiming that the Clayton house was only an "information/intelligence" outpost, rather than a major SLA headquarters.
With two of their comrades arrested, and virtually the entire SLA underground, little was left but to plan their next major action; the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst.
