Today in Labor History May 17, 1974: Cops raided the headquarters of the Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles, killing six members. It was one of the largest police shootouts in U.S. history. The cops fired 5,000 rounds and the SLA fired 4,000. Prior to the shootout, the SLA had committed several bank robberies and murders. However, they were most famous for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. One of the conditions they demanded for her release was for the Hearst family to distribute four hundred million dollars’-worth of food to the Bay Area poor. In actuality, over 100,000 bags of groceries were distributed. The SLA was a Maoist organization that saw itself as an American version of urban guerillas, like the Tupamaros, in Uruguay. By most accounts, the SLA was a group of confused wingnuts. Leader and founding member, Cinque, has been accused of being a police informant.