Pat Gros

Pat Gros (born Patricia Helen Rowbottom in 1948) is a US political activist who with her partner Raymond Luc Levasseur went underground for ten years as part of the United Freedom Front. The group carried out bombings of political targets and robbed banks for funds. Whilst living underground with rotating false identities and moving home frequently to avoid capture by a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), Gros had three daughters. Over the course of a decade, the UFF carried out around 19 bombings and stole at least $900,000 from banks, until in 1984, Gros was arrested with her family. At trial she was sentenced to five years in prison for harboring a fugitive, namely her partner. In 1989, the FBI brought further charges of racketeering and seditious conspiracy against Gros, Levasseur and another UFF member. This trial collapsed and Gros, who was already released on probation, faced no further charges.

Early life

Patricia Helen Rowbottom was born December 11, 1948 in Redlands, California. She had five sisters and two brothers. She grew up in the US state of Maryland and went to a Catholic school. She was drawn to the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967, then moved to Portland, Maine where she made a green card marriage to help a German man and took the surname Gros. Gros became involved with the Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform (SCAR) where she met radical activists such as Raymond Luc Levasseur, Tom Manning and Carol Manning. She and Levasseur became lovers and they left SCAR in August 1974 to set up a radical bookshop. Gros and Levasseur were friends with the author Agnes Bushell, who later used their exploits as the basis for her book called Local Deities.

Underground

Gros, Levasseur and the Mannings formed the revolutionary group the Sam Melville / Jonathan Jackson unit, named for two militants; later they renamed the group the United Freedom Front (UFF). They went underground, planning to rob banks to cover living expenses whilst bombing targets to protest against issues such as apartheid in South Africa and to support groups such as the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN, Armed Forces of National Liberation), which promoted independence for Puerto Rico. In January 1976, Gros gave birth to the first of three daughters she would have with Levasseur whilst they lived underground. They frequently moved house to evade capture by the authorities, living in towns across the states of Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. In each new location, the gang took up a new false identity; Gros would look after her children and find work as a waitress or a temp, whilst her partner scouted locations for robberies and bombings. Like Carol Manning, who also had children whilst underground, Gros came to see bringing up kids as more important than carrying out direct action.

On April 22 1976, the UFF made their first bombing at the probation office at the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts. Gros made a telephone warning which was ignored, so she called a second time but there were still people inside the building when the bomb went off and 22 people were injured as a result. Gros was upset that members of the public had been hurt and discussed with Levasseur how to make sure the target buildings were empty in future. The UFF next bombed the courthouse in Lowell, Massachusetts on June 21 and the First National Bank of Boston in Revere, Massachusetts on July 4, 1976 (marking the United States Bicentennial).

After being arrested with Cameron Bishop (who was on the list of FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives) as they prepared to carry out a heist, Levasseur skipped bail and was himself added to the list in 1976. On March 2, 1978, he and Tony Manning robbed a bank in Waterbury, Connecticut. Since they were living nearby, it necessitated a move to Derby. The following month, Gros gave birth to her second daughter. After bombing the Mobil Oil offices in 1979, the UFF went silent until 1981 and Gros had her third daughter in 1980. The group returned to direct action in 1981, with a bank robbery in New Britain, Connecticut. Soon afterwards, Levasseur was nearly arrested when he tried to obtain the birth certificate of a dead baby in order to create fake identification. Gros had to borrow a vehicle from the neighbour to pick him up and the family quickly abandoned their house in Cambridge, New York, moving to a farmhouse in Germansville, Pennsylvania. In December 1981, there was an incident in which state trooper Philip Lamonaco was shot dead by either Tom Manning or the new UFF member Richard Williams. Levasseur had not been present but knew that whole group would come under extra scrutiny, so he ordered another move, this time to Yonkers, New York. After the FBI became aware that Gros and Levasseur had children, their photographs were added to the wanted posters; this move was condemned by Psychology Today. In later testimony, Williams admitted that after Lamonaco's killing it had become harder to remain safely underground. Over the course of a decade, the UFF had carried out around 19 bombings and stolen at least $900,000 from banks.

Arrest and trials

A Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) was set up by the FBI alongside the New York State Police in 1982 to track the members of the United Freedom Front under the name BOSLUC. It eventually featured participants from the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and police from the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. After being donated a mainframe computer by the Grumman Corporation, the JTTF used it to match a false identity presented by Gros when she was involved in a car crash several years earlier to a mailbox currently rented under that name in Columbus, Ohio. The taskforce put the mailbox under surveillance and when Gros checked her mail on November 3, 1984, she was followed to a home in Deerfield, Ohio. The FBI watched as she led them to the other fugitives. Gros, Levasseur and their three children were arrested on November 4. Curzi Laaman, Jan Laaman and Richard Williams were apprehended the same day in Cleveland. The Mannings fled from their house and stayed underground until the following year, when they were arrested after being traced from the serial numbers on a gun.

The three daughters of Gros and Levasseur were questioned for five hours by the FBI and New Jersey State Police. The eldest daughter said she was hungry and was offered $20 and a pizza if she revealed where the Mannings were. The children were then passed to welfare despite family members offering to take them. Gros was tried separately from the others after her attorney withdrew from the case for personal reasons. She was sentenced to five years in prison for harboring a fugitive, namely her husband.

In 1989, the FBI brought further charges of racketeering and seditious conspiracy against Gros, Levasseur and Williams. Gros commented "Eight of us are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the US government by the use of force and we never had any Redeye missiles; we had no tanks; no helicopters; and no hundred million dollars." At trial, Gros' lawyer claimed that Levasseur had decided to go underground and therefore left Gros with no choice except to follow him in order to keep her family together. By this point, Gros had already spent three and a half years in jail before being released on probation; the new trial collapsed and she did not receive any additional sentence.

Later life

After her release from prison, Gros participated in the Lynne Stewart Legal Defense Committee, which supported Lynne Stewart. She also contributed five poems to a collection of writings by political prisoners edited by Levasseur and Tim Blunk.

References

• Berger, Dan (2008). "The real dragons: A brief history of political militancy and incarceration: 1960s to 2000s". In Meyer, Matt (ed.). Let freedom ring: A collection of documents from the movements to free US political prisoners. Oakland, CA; Montreal, Quebec: PM Press; Kersplebedeb. pp. 3–46. ISBN 978-1-60486-035-1.
• Blunk, Tim; Levasseur, Raymond Luc (1990). Hauling up the morning. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. ISBN 0-932415-60-1.
• Brown, Rita Bo (2003). "White North American political prisoners". In James, Joy (ed.). Imprisoned intellectuals: America's political prisoners write on life, liberation, and rebellion. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-2027-7.
• Burroughs, Bryan (2015). Days of rage: America's radical underground, the FBI and the forgotten age of revolutionary violence (Ebook ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-698-17007-0.
• Churchill, Ward; VanderWall, Jim (1990). The COINTELPRO papers: Documents from the FBI's secret wars against domestic dissent. Boston, Mass: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-359-4.
• Pluchinsky, Dennis A. (2020). Anti-American terrorism: From Eisenhower to Trump - A chronicle of the threat and response. Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 978-1-78326-874-0. Archived from the original on 2023-05-18. Retrieved 2024-02-04.
• Smith, Brent L. (1994). Terrorism in America: Pipe bombs and pipe dreams. Albany, NY: State University of New York. ISBN 0-7914-1760-3.