Early Release of Infamous Brinks Robbery Leader Evokes Indignation

By: Yitzy Fried

Readers of Rockland Daily may by now be familiar with the horrific story of the Brinks Robbery that took place more than four decades ago, in which multiple completely innocent police officers and Brinks security guards lost their lives.

While a number of those involved in the robbery, such as Weather Underground members Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dhorne, were released due to technicalities, the Black Liberation Army members who led the attack have been in Federal Prison for the last forty years.

This includes Mutulu Shakur, the mastermind behind the attack, who is now in his 70’s and is terminally ill. Doctors at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons determined that he has six months to live, and he has been granted compassionate release.

Many, however, feel that there should be no compassion granted to those who have callously murdered four souls in cold blood, and the anger is being felt this morning in Rockland County, where the attack originally took place.

"How can a compassionate release be granted for someone who played a role in callously killing three people?" says County Executive Ed Day in a statement Monday. "Once someone is murdered, they are gone forever and this individual, Mutulu Shakur, is responsible for not one, not two, but three deaths which included two police officers and a security guard all in the name of robbing a Brinks armored truck in Nanuet in 1981."

Shakur has applied for parole nine times throughout the years, and it has been denied every time. Parole was granted on medical grounds this past October, and his ultimate release on Monday has greatly angered Rocklanders who vividly recall that terrible day in 1981.