At the parole hearing, David Gilbert described a radical journey | National

NEW YORK (AP) – Former Weather Underground radical David Gilbert described his path from 1960s nonviolent activist to would-be revolutionary during a 4 1/2 hour hearing before the New York State Parole Board due for parole in October Approved 40 years after serving as a getaway driver in the botched Brink raid, which left three men dead and several others wounded.

“The change for me came after Martin Luther King was assassinated,” Gilbert told a three-person panel of commissioners during his parole hearing on October 19 at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley.

The 171-page parole hearing transcript was released Thursday in response to a freedom of information request made to The Associated Press. People’s names and some other details have been blacked out.

Gilbert, now 77, told probation officers that when civil unrest broke out in cities across the United States after King’s 1968 murder and the assassination of other civil rights activists, “that was the point where I gave up the nonviolent philosophy.”

Gilbert and other former members of the radical Weather Underground joined the Black Liberation Army militants on October 20, 1981, in an armored car raid near the Hudson River community of Nyack. Brink’s security guard Peter Paige and two Nyack police officers, Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown, were killed in the $ 1.6 million robbery and shooting incident.

Despite being unarmed, Gilbert was charged with robbery and murder for his role in the crime and sentenced to 75 years in prison.

Gilbert was paroled when his sentence was commuted by former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo just before he stepped down in August. Cuomo, announcing the conversion, said Gilbert’s convictions “related to an incident in which he was the driver, not the killer”.

The board of directors granted Gilbert parole on October 26th and he was released from prison on November 4th. The commissioners cited Gilbert’s “sincere remorse” and his pioneering work in developing AIDS education and prevention programs in prison in approving his release.

Gilbert’s attorney Steve Zeidman said Thursday that Gilbert is grateful to the parole board and is getting used to life outside of prison. “The board is to be commended for focusing on the present rather than the past,” said Zeidman.

Gilbert’s release was supported by supporters such as his son, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, but was rejected by law enforcement groups and members of the families of the Brink victims.

“Former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Parole Board should be ashamed of allowing this indigenous terrorist to roam our streets freely,” said Rockland County Executive Ed Day when Gilbert was granted parole in October. “There is no reason why David Gilbert should not do this when faced with the full consequences of his heinous crimes, no matter how much time has passed.”

Gilbert repeatedly expressed grief for the victims during his parole hearing.

“I mean, nothing repairs the horror and harm of crime, nothing,” Gilbert said. He said nothing made up for what the families went through, wives without husbands and children without fathers and, as you pointed out, a number of other people were wounded, the sense of security of an entire community is shaken, so that justice exists in this sense there is no way to repair or compensate for that. “

During the hearing, which one of the commissioners said lasted four and a half hours, Gilbert elaborated on his story as a youthful civil rights supporter and a student activist at Columbia University who became increasingly radical and joined the militant Weather Underground secession from the Activist group Students for a Democratic Society.

At the time of the Brink raid, Gilbert had been underground for several years and lived under a false name in order to evade the law as his radical comrades-in-arms were planning bomb attacks on government facilities. Gilbert said his role was primarily as an educator, class leader, and discussion group while others were building bombs.

Gilbert’s then-partner, Kathy Boudin, was also convicted in the Brink robbery and released from prison in 2003. Chesa Boudin was a toddler when his parents were arrested.

“We actually dropped our son off – you know, the most adorable creature in the world – dropped him off with a babysitter and said we’d be back in a couple of hours,” Gilbert told the parole board.

Chesa Boudin was elected San Francisco District Attorney in 2019 as part of a national wave of progressive prosecutors determined to reform the criminal justice system. He faces a dismissal in June, cheered by critics who say he failed to prosecute repeat offenders and allow them to commit more crimes.

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Associated Press Writer Michael Hill contributed to this report from Albany, New York.