Monday, September 26, 2016

the last book I ever read (American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst, excerpt eight)

from American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin:

Cinque also wanted to hide the two vans that brought the comrades to Fifty-Fourth Street. Freeman showed him the secluded alley about a block away that was frequently used as a temporary home for stolen vehicles. DeFreeze and the man hustled the two vans into the alley, but the SLA leader would soon recognize the folly of relying on a drunken stranger for advice on operational security. The police knew about the stash in the alley, and that was where the uniformed officers discovered the vehicles around noon. They radioed in the information, which prompted the arrival of the SWAT team, with its dozens of backups. The vise was tightening.

By early afternoon, the scene inside the house had turned increasingly surreal and crowded. Minnie’s children returned from school to find Nancy Ling making Molotov cocktails in the kitchen. One of the children, who was eleven years old, recognized DeFreeze, who introduced himself as Cinque, from television. When the boy asked him his name, DeFreeze repled that the boy should go into the bathroom and lie down in the tub if he didn’t want to get killed. The boy fled out the back door instead. An older man named Clarence Ross settled in with a pint bottle of whiskey. At another point, Christine Johnson and a woman named Brenda got into a fistfight. Impressed with the seventeen-year-old Brenda’s skills, the comrades asked if she wanted to join the SLA. A male friend of hers arrived, and DeFreeze asked him to go buy them a car. He gave the fellow $500 in cash, and he never returned with a car or the money. More than a dozen people passed through the house over the course of the day, and DeFreeze disclosed his identity to virtually all of them.



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