Thero Wheeler
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January 28, 1945
Thero Wheeler | |
|---|---|
| Born | Thero Lavon Wheeler January 28, 1945 Schulenburg, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | March 2, 2009 (aged 64) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Known for | Founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army |
| Partner | Mary Alice Siem |
| Children | 1 |
Thero Lavon Wheeler (January 28, 1945 – March 2, 2009), aka Bruce Bradley while a fugitive (1973–1975), was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American left-wing organization in the San Francisco Bay area. He left the group in October 1973 as he objected to its plans to undertake violent acts. Law enforcement later classified the SLA as a terrorist group.
In the following several months, SLA soldiers committed two murders, kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, and conducted armed robberies of banks.[1][2] Believed to be a member of the group, Wheeler was put on the FBI's Most Wanted List. Six of the founding members died in a shootout and fire in a house in Los Angeles in May 1974, and Wheeler was thought possibly to be among them.
But by late 1973, Wheeler was living as Bruce Bradley in Houston, Texas. He worked there as an electronics technician. He had a girlfriend and their daughter was born in early 1975. Wheeler/Bradley was apprehended by the FBI in July 1975. After reviewing the case, the FBI said they did not want Wheeler "in connection with any SLA crimes". He was returned to California to serve time for the escape and complete his previous sentence.[3]
Wheeler was born into an African-American family in Schulenburg, Texas, on January 28, 1945.[3] His mother was Ethel Mae Anderson and his father was John Henry Wheeler. The family moved to California after World War II, in the second part of the Great Migration. He grew up in San Francisco's Fillmore and Western Addition areas. He had two brothers, one of whom became a police officer.[3]
Imprisonment and radicalization
Wheeler was convicted of assault and robbery at age 17.[3] He was sentenced to one-year-to-life and sent to Vacaville Prison. There he began studying politics and history. He became a convict organizer, known as a "jailhouse lawyer." He read Engels, Marx and Lenin, socialist and communist theorists. He had joined the Black Panthers and a Maoist group, but resigned from both after critiquing their approaches. He also was involved for a time with Venceremos, a Chicano political group based in Palo Alto, California.
While held at Vacaville, Wheeler met some student activists from University of California, Berkeley, including Willie Wolfe and Russ Little. They were participating in a prisoner outreach program organized in part by professor Colston Westbrook and associated with the Black Cultural Association in prison. They sponsored many programs, including discussions devoted to social justice and correcting wrongs in United States society. For a time Wheeler was involved in a small prison group, Unisight, organized by Donald DeFreeze, whom he had met through the BCA. In this period, Wheeler also met Mary Alice Siem, a white Berkeley student and heiress, and they began a relationship.[4][page needed]
