One can understand why the men in blue are seeing red over the response of Kathleen Soliah’s friends.

Tuesday, August 03, 1999

One can understand why the men in blue are seeing red over the response of Kathleen Soliah’s friends.

Consider the facts.

Soliah faces charges of planting pipe bombs under police squad cars in Los Angeles, Calif. in 1975. To be certain, the bombs never detonated.

She has also been charged with participating in a bank robbery in Sacramento, Calif., in which a woman in the bank was shot to death.

That was 24 years ago.

Soliah moved to the Twin Cities,, married a doctor, had three daughters and became an actress in community theater productions, volunteer for community causes and just a regular citizen.

She was arrested in St. Paul in June and friends raised $1 million for her bail. She is free pending a court appearance.

The backlash from peace officers to the outpouring of sympathy for the woman, who was a fugitive and got caught, is understandable.

They are not allowed to forgive and forget felony crimes and they did their job in apprehending her.

Don’t try selling any Kathleen Soliah cookbooks to the men and women, who put their lives on the line to fight crime every day.

Innocent, indeed, until proven guilty, Soliah deserves every benefit of the criminal justice system; not becoming a cause celebre because of emotional hysteria.

Just because time passes, crime doesn’t.

Old soldiers fade away. Old felony criminal arrest warrants shouldn’t.