Earlier this week, Marilyn Buck, who served 25 years for her role in the fatal 1981 Brink's hold up in Rockland County, died in her Brooklyn home at age 62. Buck, who was also involved in the bombing of the Capitol Building, had been suffering from uterine cancer and was paroled last month from from a federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. She said in court in 1988, "I am a political prisoner, not a terrorist."
The NY Times' obituary of Buck describes, "The Brink’s robbery endures in the national memory as a powerful example of a politically motivated act gone violently awry. Carried out by a coalition of radical groups that included the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army, the holdup netted nearly $1.6 million, which was recovered immediately. Two police officers and a Brink’s guard were fatally shot in the course of the holdup, which unfolded in and around Nanuet, N.Y., on Oct. 20, 1981." Buck, one of the getaway drivers, accidentally shot herself in the leg but managed to get away; she was arrested in Dobbs Ferry, NY in 1985.
Federal prosecutors also say she aided Black Liberation Army leader Joanne Chesimard escape prison (Chesimard is currently in Cuba) and was involved with another fatal 1981 armored car holdup in the Bronx. The AP reports, "She pleaded guilty to playing a role in Capitol bombing in 1988, though she later said she only took the deal to spare fellow radicals from lengthy prison terms. Other bombings covered by her plea agreement included attacks on a federal building, a police union and the South African consulate in New York City and at the National War College and Washington Navy Yard in Washington."
During her imprisonment, Buck's poetry won PEN recognition. The Friends of Marilyn Buck website says she translated Spanish for fellow prisoned and "also taught writing, GED preparation, history, and yoga inside." The site offers this quote from her, "I survived, carried on, glad to be like a weed, a wild red poppy, rooted in life."
