Edward O'Grady

Sergeant Edward O'Grady and Police Officer Waverly Brown were shot and killed by heavily armed members of a domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground, who had just robbed a bank and were attempting to escape. The suspects had just murdered an armored car guard and wounded two other guards before loading themselves into the back of a rental truck to be driven away by accomplices. The truck was stopped at a roadblock manned by several Nyack officers on Route 59 just west of the New York Thruway. One of the female occupants in the cab of the truck told the officers their guns were making her nervous. Thinking they had stopped the wrong truck, the officers began to holster their weapons. Almost immediately afterward, several of the heavily armed men exited the back of the truck and opened fire with automatic weapons, fatally wounding Officer Brown and Sergeant O'Grady. The suspects fled the scene in different directions, but seven men and three women were eventually apprehended and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. One of the women was paroled in August 2003. Another woman was released on July 15, 2010, and died of cancer one month later. One of the men died in prison on December 13, 1986. The third female offender was granted parole in April 2019. A suspect convicted of killing Police Officer John G. Scarangella of the New York City Police Department was a prime suspect in the murders of Sergeant O'Grady and Officer Brown. When he was arrested for the murder of Officer Scarangella, he was in possession of a gun linked to the murders of Sergeant O'Grady and Officer Brown. That suspect was never charged in these murders. The Weather Underground was also connected to the Black Liberation Army, which was responsible for the murders of at least one dozen other police officers throughout the country. The Weather Underground is believed to be responsible for the unsolved bombing murder of San Francisco, California, Police Department Sergeant Brian McDonnell on Februa