Brinks robbery (1981)
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The Brinks robbery of 1981 was an armed robbery in which Kathy Boudin and several members of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army stole over $1 million from a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York on October 20, 1981. The robbers were stopped by police later that day and engaged them in a shootout.
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[edit] Robbery
The robbers included David Gilbert, Samuel Brown, Judith Alice Clark, and Kathy Boudin. The robbery began with Boudin dropping her infant son, Chesa Boudin, at a baby sitter's before picking up the getaway vehicle, a U-Haul truck. She waited in a nearby parking lot as her heavily armed accomplices took another vehicle to a local mall where a Brinks truck was making a delivery. They confronted the guards and shot Joe Trombino, wounding him, and killed his co-worker, Peter Paige. The four criminals then took $1.6 million in cash and rendezvoused with Boudin.
[edit] Car swap
An alert high-school student called the police after spotting the heavily armed crew abandoning the getaway vehicle and entering the U-Haul in a disused shopping mall parking lot. A police officer spotted and pulled over the U-Haul, but they could only see Boudin in the drivers seat. Boudin then got out of the cab, and raised her hands.
[edit] Second gunfight
Boudin and David Gilbert, a Weatherman radical and the father of Boudin's infant son, deliberately acted as decoys as well as getaway drivers--police were then searching for African-American suspects (all members of the Black Liberation Army) who drove a red car.
The police officers who caught them testified that Boudin, feigning innocence, pleaded with them to put down their guns and convinced them to drop their guard; Boudin said she remained silent, that the officers relaxed spontaneously. After the police did lower their weapons, six of the men in the back of the truck, who were armed with automatic weapons, surprised the four police officers by emerging and opening fire. A police officer, Waverly Brown, was killed instantly.
Officer Edward O'Grady lived long enough to empty his revolver, but as he reloaded, he was shot several times with an M16. Ninety minutes later, he died on a hospital operating table. The other two officers escaped with only minor injuries. The occupants of the U-Haul scattered, some climbing into another getaway car, others carjacking a nearby motorist while Boudin attempted to flee on foot. An off-duty corrections officer apprehended her shortly after the shoot out. When she was arrested, Boudin gave her name as Barbara Edson.
[edit] Arrests
Three other Black Liberation Army members failed to escape. Weathermen David Gilbert, Samuel Brown, and Judith Alice Clark crashed their own car while making a sharp turn, and were arrested by police. Two days later, Samuel Smith and Nathaniel Burns were spotted in a car in New York. After a gunfight with police that left Smith dead, Burns was captured. Three more participants were arrested several months later, including Kuwasi Balagoon.
The investigation for the participants in the robbery would continue for years. Marilyn Buck, who provided the robbers with a safe house and weapons, was arrested in 1985. The last person to be arrested in connection with it was Jeral Williams, the alleged ringleader of the robbery, in 1986.
[edit] Sentencing
The majority of the defendants received three consecutive twenty-five year-to-life sentences, making them eligible for parole in the year 2058. Boudin hired Leonard Weinglass to defend her. Weinglass, a law partner of Boudin's father, arranged for a plea bargain and Boudin pled guilty to one count of felony murder and robbery, in exchange for a single twenty year-to-life sentence. She was paroled in 2003.
[edit] Police
[edit] Edward J. O'Grady II
Edward O'Grady II (August 20, 1948 – October 20, 1981) was born in Nyack, New York. After graduating high school, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served two tours of service in the Vietnam War. O'Grady joined the Nyack Police department after his discharge and also worked as a volunteer fire fighter with the Nyack fire department. In 1976, O'Grady was promoted to sergeant, the youngest person in the history of Rockland County, New York to achieve that rank. At the time of his death, he was enrolled at St. Thomas Aquinas College and was close to receiving his bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He was survived by his wife and three children. His son, Edward J. O'Grady III, went on to join the United States Navy, graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1997.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Crime Library
- Officer Down Memorial Page: O'Grady
- Officer Down Memorial Page: Waverly
- O'Grady Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund
[edit] References
- New York Times; September 29, 1983; Citing adverse publicity generated by the recent trial of three defendants in the Brink's murder and robbery case in Goshen, New York, lawyers for Kathy Boudin and Samuel Brown asked a state appellate court in Brooklyn yesterday to move their upcoming trial out of Orange County. The tight security measures and the press coverage at the recently concluded Brink's trial, the lawyers argued, had further aroused a community already hostile to their clients. They asked the five-judge panel to move th...
- Time (magazine); Monday, November 2, 1981 Bullets from the Underground. A bloody robbery attempt brings a roundup of '60s fugitives. The armored Brink's truck pulled up to the Nanuet National Bank near suburban Nyack, New York, shortly before 4 p.m. and two guards began loading $1.6 million in cash. Suddenly three armed men in ski masks jumped out of a red van and opened fire. One guard was killed instantly and the other critically wounded. The three bandits and an accomplice dashed off with the loot. "They didn't even ask them to hand over the money," declared an incredulous witness. "They just blasted away."
