Posted on 09/17/2003 6:13:24 PM PDT by El Conservador
BEDFORD, N.Y. - Over bitter protests from law officers, 1960s radical Kathy Boudin was released from prison Wednesday after serving 22 years for murder in an armored car heist that left two policemen and a security guard dead.
"I'm physically ill right now," said Brent Newbury, president of the Rockland County Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "I can't believe I just saw Kathy Boudin walk out of prison."
Boudin, 60, a former Weather Underground member, was granted parole last month despite heavy opposition of relatives, friends and colleagues of the slain men.
On Wednesday morning, she walked out of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County with her lawyer, Leonard Weinglass.
Wearing a loose white shirt, black pants and white sneakers, Boudin repeatedly turned back toward the prison to wave farewell to several inmate friends gathered at a window. After the long goodbye, she climbed into a sport utility vehicle and was driven away behind a police car.
There were no active protesters, but a few members of the police association were on hand "to make sure that we don't forget the police officers and the security officer who were slain," Newbury said. "Kathy Boudin needs to know that when she's sleeping safely tonight, she's being protected by police officers just like the ones that she was involved in murdering."
Boudin was once a member of the Weather Underground — a group that helped define the radical anti-war movement of the 1960s with its violent protests and bombings.
She was later recruited for the robbery by Black Liberation Army members and other radicals. The robbers stole $1.6 million from a Brink's armored car at a suburban mall and killed security guard Peter Paige. The two policemen, Sgt. Edward O'Grady and Officer Waverly Brown, were gunned down when the truck, with Boudin in the passenger seat, was stopped at a roadblock and gang members burst from the back of the vehicle with automatic weapons firing.
Boudin was caught as she fled. She had been a fugitive for the previous decade after she was seen running from an explosion at a New York City townhouse where bombs allegedly were being made.
Boudin, the daughter of the late civil rights attorney Leonard Boudin, was convicted of murder and robbery and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison in the robbery.
One of the details of Boudin's new life was announced about seven hours after her release. Kathleen McGovern, a spokeswoman for St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan, said Boudin will take a job at the hospital developing programs for HIV (news - web sites)-positive women.
Boudin will be under routine parole restrictions including a 10 p.m. curfew and limits on travel for the rest of her life.
The hospital job would echo some of the work Boudin did in prison that helped her win parole — organizing programs for AIDS (news - web sites) patients and inmates with children, for example.
Anamarie Scala-Doran, whose police officer father was killed in an attempted robbery in 1975 while guarding St. Luke's payroll, was outraged by word of the job.
"It's offensive to my family and me that my father gave his life protecting the people of St. Luke's Hospital, yet they would consider employing a person guilty of murdering police officers," she said in an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Post.
Gov. George Pataki announced his disapproval when Boudin's parole was granted in August, and there are signs of a shakeup to come. Board Chairman Brion Travis has told his fellow commissioners he is giving up "day-to-day administrative responsibilities" for the board, and state government sources said the move was a direct result of the Boudin parole decision. Thomas Grant, spokesman for the state Parole Division, denied that.
Well, at least the bitch served 2 more years than the minimum...guess I can be thankful for that.(not)
FMCDH
Didn't Boudin get out of the vehicle or somehow purposely draw the attention of the police officers to her? And then her friends murdered the officers?
"...When the U-Haul was stopped at a roadblock set up by Nyack police shortly after the robbery, Ms. Boudin immediately left the cab, raising her arms to signify her surrender to the armed police who were standing nearby. Subsequently, as police attempted to open the back of the truck, shooting erupted, killing two of the police officers at the scene.In dismissing the counts relating to the shooting of the two police officers, the District Attorney's office tacitly acknowledged the correctness of the defense argument that Ms. Boudin could not be held legally responsible for those killings because she had already surrendered, and was in custody..."
I believe everything is under the microscope because of the politics of this case and her release. The verbiage if not accurate would have no positives for her, so I believe it an accurate representation of the facts.
She has done well in prison and I believe she is not the same Kathy who went in. I wish her well, and hope she really does know -like she says she does - and never forgets better people then her died because of the criminal intent that put her in prison. And that if their lives could be traded for hers, there isn't many who wouldn't do so in a second.
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