Sara Jane Olson, who was a fugitive for a quarter-century after attempting to kill Los Angeles police officers and participating in a deadly bank robbery near Sacramento as a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, is scheduled to be released from a California prison next week.
"That bomb should have gone off that night," Hall said. "I would have been just one of many people that would have been dead. It just brings up a lot of anger knowing that she's going to be released."
Hall recalls that a girl about 8 years old was watching from the restaurant.
"That little girl was waving at us as we drove off. If that bomb would have gone off, she would have been killed along with her family," said Hall, who served 31 years with the department. "I haven't forgiven her (Olson) in the least for what she's done and what she could have done to many more innocent people."
In addition to the attempting bombings and the Hearst kidnapping, the SLA had a long list of high-profile crimes during the mid-1970s, including the assassination of an Oakland schools superintendent and the shotgun slaying of Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four who was depositing a church collection at a bank near Sacramento when the group robbed it.
Olson was in the bank during that 1975 heist, which netted the SLA $15,000.
