Mutulu Shakur (born Jeral Wayne Williams; August 8, 1950) is an American activist and former member of the Black Liberation Army, sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were murdered. Shakur was politically active as a teen with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and later the black separatist movement the Republic of New Afrika. He was the stepfather of slain actor and rap artist Tupac Shakur. On November 10, 2022, the United States Parole Commission granted Shakur's release on parole, effective December 16, 2022. The Commission noted that Shakur's terminal illness ensured that he was not a threat to commit another crime. Life Early life Shakur was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 8 August 1950, as Jeral Wayne Williams. At age seven he moved to Jamaica, Queens, New York City with his mother, who was blind, and younger sister. Activism By his late teens, Shakur was politically active with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and later joined the Republic of New Afrika. In 1970, Shakur began working with the Lincoln Detox program, which offered drug rehabilitation to heroin addiction using acupuncture — instead of the FDA-approved drug methadone. Eventually he became the program's assistant director and remained associated with the program until 1978. He became certified and licensed to practice acupuncture in the State of California in 1979. He went on to help found and direct the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture. Brink's robbery, arrest and incarceration Shakur was one of several Black Liberation Army members to carry out the 1981 robbery of an armored car. Aided by the May 19 Communist Organization and former members of the Weather Underground, the BLA crew stole $1.6 million in cash from a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York, killing a Brink's guard, Peter Paige, seriously wounding another Brinks guard, Joseph Trombino, and subsequently killing two Nyack police officers, Edward O'Grady and Waverly Brown (the first black member of the Nyack, New York, police department). Trombino recovered from the wounds he received in this incident, but was killed in 2001 in the September 11 attacks. Shakur, the alleged ringleader of the group, evaded capture for six years and thus was the last one to go on trial on charges related