Release Gilbert from his imprisonment
I am one of thousands of New Yorkers who support the release of David Gilbert from prison for his role in the failed Brinks robbery in 1981. I'm one of hundreds of people who have met and corresponded with him during his 40 years of incarceration.
But in many ways, I have more in common with family members of the victims of Gilbert’s crime than with him. My brother, Army Specialist Edward Pimental, was killed by the Red Army Faction in August 1985 in an attack on the U.S. airbase at RheinMain, Germany, that left two other Americans dead and more than 20 people wounded. He was 20 years old when he was executed by the RAF, a leftist political group who had “declared war” on the United States.
Although the details are different, the circumstances of my brother’s death are painfully similar to the deaths that Gilbert was responsible for. As in the Brinks robbery, three people — none of whom were intentional targets of the planners — died violent deaths in circumstances that produced terror and injury to many others. These crimes are separated by years and thousands of miles, but they share some unique qualities.
In 2018, as part of my lifelong process of healing from the loss of my brother, and because Gilbert was in his own lifelong process of grappling with the impacts of his actions, we corresponded and agreed to meet. In his decades of incarceration, Gilbert had never spoken to someone whose experience so closely mirrored those of the families of the victims of the Brinks robbery.
I didn’t know what to expect when I went inside the prison to sit across a table from Gilbert. I was nervous, so I brought a trusted person with me. I found that he was thoughtful and willing to answer all my direct and painful questions about that day and his role in it. He asked me questions to understand my profound loss and what my family had experienced in the aftermath of my brother’s violent death.
I went on to visit Gilbert a number of times pre-COVID. We talked about many things: our children and other