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Donald DeFreeze
Donald David DeFreeze (November 16, 1943 – May 17, 1974), also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was an American man involved with the far-left radical group Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and convicted criminal.
DeFreeze's exact role within the Symbionese Liberation Army is unclear, but analysts have suggested he was either a figurehead or an indirect leader. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, DeFreeze dropped out of high school and had a criminal record from the age of fourteen. He received probation in the late 1960s, leading some sources to suggest he was serving as a police informant to the Los Angeles Police Department.
He and several associates began to make plans for armed action that they believed would rouse the African-American community and attract more recruits. Three SLA soldiers fatally shot Marcus Foster, the superintendent of public schools in Oakland, California, the first African-American superintendent of any major public school system, and wounded his deputy. They mistakenly believed he supported a program of student IDs. Two members of the SLA were arrested in January 1974, convicted and sentenced to prison for the crimes.
DeFreeze and co-conspirators next kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in February 1974, seeking a ransom and media attention for their cause. During a shootout with law enforcement in Los Angeles, DeFreeze committed suicide by gunshot when he and five SLA members resisted a police raid in a burning house.
A private investigation before the raid suggested that DeFreeze may have been a police informant and agent provocateur from before the founding days of the SLA. His remains were returned to his native Cleveland, where the funeral was organized at his family's request.
DeFreeze was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Louis and Mary DeFreeze; he was the oldest of eight children. His mother was a registered nurse at a convalescent home. His father was a violent man who punished DeFreeze frequently; he broke both of the boy's arms three times when he was a child.
DeFreeze dropped out of school in the ninth grade at age 14 and ran away from home. He moved to Buffalo, New York, where he lived with the Rev. William L. Foster, a fundamentalist minister, and his family. He became a street gang member in Buffalo. The Rev. Foster would say of him later:
He was a get up and go kid... he had a heart that was as big as a house. But some of the boys he used to hang around with, I didn't care for. You just knew they were 99 and 44/100 percent bad.
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Donald DeFreeze
Donald David DeFreeze (November 16, 1943 – May 17, 1974), also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was an American man involved with the far-left radical group Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and convicted criminal.
DeFreeze's exact role within the Symbionese Liberation Army is unclear, but analysts have suggested he was either a figurehead or an indirect leader. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, DeFreeze dropped out of high school and had a criminal record from the age of fourteen. He received probation in the late 1960s, leading some sources to suggest he was serving as a police informant to the Los Angeles Police Department.
He and several associates began to make plans for armed action that they believed would rouse the African-American community and attract more recruits. Three SLA soldiers fatally shot Marcus Foster, the superintendent of public schools in Oakland, California, the first African-American superintendent of any major public school system, and wounded his deputy. They mistakenly believed he supported a program of student IDs. Two members of the SLA were arrested in January 1974, convicted and sentenced to prison for the crimes.
DeFreeze and co-conspirators next kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in February 1974, seeking a ransom and media attention for their cause. During a shootout with law enforcement in Los Angeles, DeFreeze committed suicide by gunshot when he and five SLA members resisted a police raid in a burning house.
A private investigation before the raid suggested that DeFreeze may have been a police informant and agent provocateur from before the founding days of the SLA. His remains were returned to his native Cleveland, where the funeral was organized at his family's request.
DeFreeze was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Louis and Mary DeFreeze; he was the oldest of eight children. His mother was a registered nurse at a convalescent home. His father was a violent man who punished DeFreeze frequently; he broke both of the boy's arms three times when he was a child.
DeFreeze dropped out of school in the ninth grade at age 14 and ran away from home. He moved to Buffalo, New York, where he lived with the Rev. William L. Foster, a fundamentalist minister, and his family. He became a street gang member in Buffalo. The Rev. Foster would say of him later:
He was a get up and go kid... he had a heart that was as big as a house. But some of the boys he used to hang around with, I didn't care for. You just knew they were 99 and 44/100 percent bad.