The 1981 Brink's Heist

On October 20, 1981, members of the Weather Underground, working alongside other communist revolutionary group The Black Liberation Army, carried out a violent armed robbery of a Brinks truck transporting over one million dollars in cash. The attack left one guard dead and two others gravely wounded. During their escape, the terrorists killed two police officers and critically injured a third.

On the morning of the heist, Kathy Boudin dropped off her infant son, Chesa Boudin, who decades later would become San Francisco’s District Attorney, at a babysitter’s before picking up a rented U-Haul, one of the planned getaway vehicles. The plan was to pick up the actual stickup men, members of the black liberation army, in the back of the truck leaving the young white WU members sitting in the front to throw off police. The money would be thrown into the back of a yellow Honda, driven by Judith Clarke.

The actual stickup was carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army. Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Mtayari Sundiata, Samuel Brown, and Mutulu Shakur (Tupac Shakur’s stepfather, yes that Tupac), emerged from a van armed with rifles and shotguns. In the opening moments, all three Brinks guards were shot; guard Peter Paige was killed instantly. The robbers fled with just over one million dollars in cash.

The crew ditched the van at the rendezvous point, where Kathy Boudin waited behind the wheel of a U-Haul and Judith Clarke idled nearby in a bright yellow Honda. In a carefully choreographed switch, the gunmen scrambled into the back of the U-Haul along with their rifles and shotguns, while the college-aged Weather Underground members slid into the front seats, posing as nothing more than nervous students on a moving job. The million dollars in cash was stuffed into the Honda, ready to vanish into traffic.

But someone was watching. A civilian spotted the suspicious hand-off and picked up the phone. Moments later, police dispatchers were broadcasting the alert. Roadblocks began snapping into place across the highways and backroads, tightening like a net around the fleeing terrorists.

The U-Haul was stopped at a police roadblock as it tried to enter the highway. Officers hesitated. Dispatch had described Black suspects, yet inside the cab sat Kathy Boudin and another young, white Weather Underground members. They pleaded that they were innocent college students caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

According to police testimony, officers approached the truck with weapons drawn, but the women’s frantic protests sowed doubt. The troopers holstered their guns, believing they’d stopped the wrong vehicle.

Then the back of the U-Haul burst open and six armed men in body armor leapt out, rifles blazing. The roadblock dissolved into chaos as officers were cut down in a hail of gunfire.

Officer Waverly Brown was struck in the leg and fell to the pavement, clutching the wound. As he struggled, one of the gunmen strode over and executed him at point-blank range in the middle of the street. Nearby, Officer Edward O’Grady emptied his revolver in a desperate stand before collapsing, mortally wounded; he would die hours later on the operating table.

Two more officers were hit in the barrage as the gunmen scrambled back into the U-Haul. The truck roared from the roadblock, but Officer Brian Lennon fired his shotgun into the fleeing vehicle. The blast tore through the side of the truck, sending it careening out of control. It crashed into a parked patrol car, the occupants scattered in all directions.

At the same time, Judith Clarke tried to push the yellow Honda through the roadblock. In the chaos, she lost control and slammed into another vehicle. The crash crippled the car and left its occupants stunned, giving police the chance to swarm in arresting the occupants without further casualties.

Tracing the U-Haul rental quickly led investigators to a New Jersey apartment leased under the name of an escaped convict previously convicted of supplying weapons to the Black Liberation Army. A search of the premises uncovered incomplete improvised explosive devices as well as detailed schematics of multiple NYPD precinct buildings, suggesting broader operations were being planned beyond the Brinks robbery.

Further inquiries directed police to a New York residence, where they recovered additional weapons and clothing stained with blood. Laboratory analysis later identified the blood as belonging to Marilyn Buck, a Weather Underground member injured when her own firearm was discharged as she attempted to draw it on police. Buck managed to evade capture and remained at large for the next four years.

Mtayari Sundiata was killed during the shootout with police. The majority of the participants were either arrested at the scene or tracked down within days. Marilyn Buck, wounded but not captured, remained a fugitive until her arrest in 1985. Mutulu Shakur, identified as the leader of the Black Liberation Army contingent and stepfather of rapper Tupac Shakur, managed to evade authorities for nearly five years before being apprehended in 1986.

Gilbert, Kuwasi Balagoon and Clarke were found guilty of murder and sentenced to three consecutive 25-life sentences. Balagoon, who refused to show up to court said: “As to the seventy-five years in prison, I am not really worried, not only because I am in the habit of not completing sentences or waiting on parole or any of that nonsense but also because the State simply isn't going to last seventy-five or even fifty years.” He died of aids in prison in 1986.

Judith Clarke, the getaway driver of the yellow Honda, represented herself at trial and was convicted. In 2003, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, appointed by President Clinton, granted her a new trial, ruling that she should not have represented herself. However, an appellate court rejected Scheindlin’s reasoning, and Clarke’s request for a new trial was ultimately denied. In 2016, Governor Andrew Cuomo commuted her sentence, making her eligible for parole; she was released in 2019.

David Gilbert, father of Chesa Boudin and the getaway driver of the U-haul, was granted clemency by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2021. Throughout his imprisonment, Gilbert authored a series of writings that reflect his far-left extremist views and his journey from radical terrorist to political prisoner.

In his writings, Gilbert describes his ideological evolution, stating:

“Compared to many people in the ‘60s – when some leaped from Republican families to militant radicals in a matter of months – I was as slow and deliberate as a turtle, grappling with every step in the process: from liberal Democrat, to social democrat (hoping to bring about moderate socialism through elections), to nonviolent civil disobedience, to building resistance through street militancy and draft defiance, to supporting revolutionary armed struggle.”

He also reflects on the broader political landscape, noting:

“We need to be coming out with an economic program that speaks to some of these frustrations. It’s tricky to do because there’s a history of white union organizing that sold out people of color, that consolidated white privileges. But there are ways to do it that ally with the people who are most oppressed [and often] have struggles that are leading around this, like Justice for Janitors or the 15 dollar minimum wage or environmental justice.”

He remains a free man today.

Kathy Boudin, mother of Chesa Boudin and who picked up the U-Haul and convinced officers to lower their weapons, was granted clemency by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2003. Following her release, she became a professor of social work at Columbia University, where she founded a student action group focused on prison abolition. Boudin remained active in criminal justice reform until her death in 2022.

The disastrous Brinks robbery effectively marked the end of both the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. With key members either captured or killed, the surviving participants largely retreated from terrorist activity, many eventually transitioning into academic and political roles, a trajectory I will explore in greater detail in subsequent essays.