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Mutulu Shakur

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Mutulu Shakur
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive
Description
Born (1950-08-08) August 8, 1950 (age 74)
Status
AddedJuly 23, 1982
CaughtFebruary 11, 1986
Number380
Captured

Mutulu Shakur (born August 8, 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland as Jeral Wayne Williams), is a former proponent of the Republic of New Afrika and a close friend of Geronimo Pratt.

Shakur is best known for planning the infamous $1.6 million robbery of a Brinks armored truck in New York in which a guard and two police officers were killed. One of his accomplices in the holdup was Kathy Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground and a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 11 years. Boudin was arrested at the scene of the crime, but Shakur escaped. Shakur had been a leader of an offshoot of the Black Liberation Army. He is currently incarcerated in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons "Administrative Maximum" (ADX) Facility in Florence, Colorado.[1] His projected release date is February 10, 2016.[1]

Robbery and arrest

On October 20, 1981, after six previous unsuccessful attempts to rob a Brinks truck[citation needed], Shakur and five or six other men succeeded in robbing one, killing one of the Brinks guards. They drove to another location where they transferred the money to a U-Haul truck driven by Boudin and her husband David Gilbert. However, the transfer was seen and called in to the police, who set up a roadblock at the Tappan Zee Bridge. A shootout occurred in which two Nyack policemen were killed and Boudin was captured. Citation Needed

In the 1980s, he was arrested on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges of bank robbery and aiding his sister, Assata Shakur, in her escape from prison on November 2, 1979. While at large, on July 23, 1982 he became the 380th person added by the FBI to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was arrested February 11, 1986 in California and was subsequently found guilty of taking part in the armored-truck robbery and the prison escape.[2]

Citation Needed While in ADX Florence, he was visited by novelist Jonathan Franzen. The visit forms part of Franzen's essay "Control Units," which is included in his book of essays How to Be Alone, published in 2002. Shakur is to be released in 2016. He is also featured on a television show called American Gangster featured on Centric and BET. Citation Needed

Personal life

Shakur was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950. His mother was legally blind.

Shakur was a strong supporter of Malcolm X as well as several other Civil Right's leaders at the time. As he grew older he moved to Harlem in New York City in the 1970s. Shakur later joined the Republic Of New Afrika and the BLA (Black Liberation Army) as well. He was involved with several bank robberies and other criminal activities.

Shakur is the stepfather of late rapper Tupac Shakur, and father of rapper Mopreme Shakur. Shakur was interviewed in the Oscar-nominated documentary Tupac: Resurrection, in which he described how he wrote a "Thug Life Handbook" with Tupac, expressing an anti-drug and anti-violence message.

In 1970 Shakur started working with the Lincoln Detox (detoxification) Community (addiction treatment) Program, which offered drug treatment to addicts using acupuncture. Shakur became certified and licensed to practice acupuncture in the State of California in 1976. Eventually he became the program’s assistant director and remained associated with the program until 1978. He went on to help found and direct the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture.

Mutulu founded a New York-based organization named Dare 2 Struggle, and released a compilation CD under the same name. As Shakur explains it, the CD was created in order to motivate, inspire, and challenge black people to struggle against their obstacles. He also recorded a radio PSA for Deejay Ra's "Hip-Hop Literacy" campaign, encouraging reading of books about Tupac.

Shakur has four children, including two daughters (Sekiywa and Nzingha) and two sons (Mopreme, Chinua).

In 2006, he released a 10-year anniversary tribute album for Tupac Shakur called A 2Pac Tribute: Dare 2 Struggle, featuring artists such as Mopreme Shakur, Outlawz and Imaan Faith. It was released through music industry veteran Morey Alexander's First Kut Records and Canadian activist Deejay Ra's Lyrical Knockout Entertainment.

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&LastName=Shakur&Middle=&FirstName=Mutulu&Race=U&Sex=U&Age=&x=331&y=291
  2. ^ Lubasch, Arnold H. (May 12, 1988). "2 Ex-fugitives Convicted of Roles in Fatal Armored-Truck Robbery". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-10. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

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