On October 20, 1981, a coalition of Black Liberation Army members and white radicals from the May 19th Communist Organization robbed a Brink's armored truck at the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County, New York. The robbery went catastrophically wrong: Brink's guard Peter Paige was killed at the mall, and moments later, at a roadblock in nearby Nyack, police officers Edward O'Grady and Waverly Brown — the latter the town's first Black officer — were shot and killed.
The failed robbery led to a sweeping federal investigation and prosecutions that effectively dismantled what remained of the armed underground. Defendants including Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Mutulu Shakur, and the Weather Underground veteran David Gilbert drew long sentences; several, along with Marilyn Buck, became prominent long-term political prisoners.
