NCJ Number
101127
Date Published
1986
Length
350 pages
Annotation
Drawing on FBI reports, surveillance tapes, and interviews, this book explains the formation, activities, and personalities of the terrorist group responsible for the October 20, 1981, Brinks armored car robbery in Nyack, N.Y.
Abstract
Documents seized from radical couriers and safe houses are used to trace the gang's history and activities from holdup to holdup, with particular attention to events surrounding the disastrous Brinks robbery. Kathy Boudin, a member of the group who had eluded police for more than a decade, is profiled. By profiling gang members from their early political activism to the Brinks robbery, the book portrays how idealism hardened into fanaticism, radical principles degenerated into opportunism, and commitment changed to doubt and mistrust. The book reveals hitherto undisclosed facts about the robbery and the investigation that followed it, details the participants' mistrust of one another in events after their arrest, and recounts the negotiations that led Kathy Boudin to plead guilty to robbery and murder in the second degree. Chapter notes and subject index. (Publisher summary modified)