Brinks Killer Eligible for Parole

Mutulu Shakur, ringleader of the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery, has a hearing scheduled in April to consider his release from prison after serving thirty of his sixty-year sentence.

Shakur was arrested and charged with murder for the deaths of two police officers, Sgt. Edward O’Grady and officer Waverly “Chipper” Brown, and one security officer, Peter Paige. Mutulu Shakur was stepfather of the late Tupac Shakur and leader of the radical Black Liberation Army. Mutulu led his gang called ‘The Family’ through the robbery and murders.

In 2003 Kathy Boudin, an accomplice to the murders, was released from prison after serving 23 years of her life sentence; she now works as a professor at Columbia Univeristy. Family members of the victims and others expressed surprise that Shakur was eligible for parole. “I don’t believe anyone thought he would get out any time soon,” Rockland County Undersheriff Robert Van Cura said.