Page 109 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Boudin, Katherine (1942– )———83

actually increase the potential casualties from an capitalist America, particularly U.S. involvement in
attack, by misdirecting the police as to its location. the Vietnam War. Boudin participated in many
This was precisely what happened in the 1998 bomb- protests and demonstrations at the time.
ing in Omagh, Northern Ireland. In 1969, she joined Weatherman, the militant off-
It is often possible to protect individual buildings shoot of the SDS. Boudin was involved in the Days of
or complexes from bombings, and some airports are Rage in Chicago and other violent protests, and also
equipped with bomb-sniffing dogs and/or CTX-5500 authored a handbook on the various ways to evade
scanners to detect bombs and keep them off planes. The detection by the authorities. She was present at the
fact that bombs are so easily concealed, constructed, townhouse in Greenwich Village, New York City, in
and transported, however, makes it extremely difficult 1970 when a bomb group members were manufactur-
to protect against them in a general sense. ing exploded. The blast killed three members of the
group, but Boudin and another, Cathy Wilkerson,
See also DAVID COPELAND; COUNTERTERRORISM; IRISH
managed to escape both from harm and the police.
REPUBLICAN ARMY; OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING; OMAGH
Like many other surviving members at the time,
BOMBING; UNABOMBER; WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING
(1993) Boudin went underground to avoid being captured by
the FBI. After Weatherman (by that time rechristened
Further Reading as Weather Underground) disbanded as an organiza-
tion at the end of the Vietnam War, Boudin turned her
Bomb Threats and Physical Security Planning. Washington, attention toward the Black Liberation Army (BLA),
DC: Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, an extremely violent and radical splinter group of the
Tobacco and Firearms, 1998.
Brodie, Thomas G. Bombs and Bombings: A Handbook to Black Panthers. The group was notorious for commit-
Detection, Disposal, and Investigation for Police and ting armed robberies to fund their activities. Boudin
Fire Departments. 2nd ed. Springfield, IL: Charles was an integral component of their largest heist ever,
C Thomas, 1996. the robbery of a Brinks armored truck in Nanuet,
Harber, David. The Anarchist Arsenal: Improvised New York, on October 20, 1981. She was to be the
Incendiary and Explosives Techniques. Boulder, CO: white, and therefore less suspicious, driver of their get-
Paladin, 1990. away vehicle, a U-Haul truck. Police stopped the vehi-
Harber, David. Guerrilla’s Arsenal: Advanced Techniques cle on the New York Thruway because they had been
for Making Explosives and Time-Delay Bombs. Boulder, alerted to look for a U-Haul. However, Boudin con-
CO: Paladin, 1994. vinced them that hers was not the right truck. As the
McKittrick, David. Making Sense of the Troubles. Belfast: officers stowed their weapons, gunmen of the BLA
Blackstaff, 2000.
Mello, Michael. The United State of America Versus jumped from the back of the truck and began firing
Theodore John Kaczynski: Ethics, Power and the with automatic weapons. Sergeant Edward O’Grady,
Invention of the Unabomber. New York: Context Officer Waverly Brown, and Brinks guard Peter Paige
Books, 1999. were all killed. Boudin was apprehended. She pleaded
guilty to charges of felony murder and armed robbery
in exchange for a 20-years-to-life sentence.
BOUDIN, KATHERINE (1942– ) While in prison, she earned a master’s degree in
adult education and has worked on AIDS prevention
programs for prisons. With her own son being only
Revolutionary Katherine Boudin was involved in a one year old in 1981, she also developed a program to
bomb explosion and was arrested and imprisoned for help mothers behind bars parent their children. In
life for her participation in an armed robbery that left 2001, at age 58, she had served the minimum 20 years
two police officers and a guard dead. of her sentence and was eligible for parole. On August
The daughter of attorney and civil rights activist 22, 2001, she came before the New York Board of
Leonard Boudin, Katherine Boudin graduated from Pardons and Paroles and she was denied. Boudin will
Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. While attending be eligible for parole again in August 2003.
law school in the 1960s, she became an activist and
joined the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a See also BERNARDINE DOHRN; MAY 19 COMMUNIST
group devoted to opposing the perceived evils of ORGANIZATION; WEATHERMAN