New York, NY —

Former Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin spends her first full day on parole after 22 years in prison. Her case won national attention when the Bryn Mawr graduate turned fugitive was involved in a robbery that left three people dead. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports.

The Kathy Boudin case has always caused emotions to run high among police officers, and yesterday they were out in force, ordering reporters far from the entrance of the Bedford Hills Correctional facility.

Officer: I tried to be nice about it as an officer I'm telling you to get off the roadway

And so, as photographers jostled for an angle from a football field's length away, the former 1960's radical walked down a long concrete pathway and out of prison:

Man: somebody's waving...i see it i see it.

Under a clear blue September sky, Boudin, dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt, turned back to the jail for a long wave, before leaving in a small green SUV with her lawyer, Leonard Weinglass. Despite the opposition to her release, there wasn't a large protest, but Brent Newbury, President of the Rockland County patrolmen's benevolent association, was there with a few PBA members to witness the scene.

Weinglass:Um how would I describe it I'm disgusted I'm very disappointed in the system I can't believe I actually saw her walk out of prison.

Neither Boudin nor Weinglass acknowledged the large contingent of reporters; Weinglass later spoke by telephone. He said Boudin was planning a reunion with her son, Chesa, now a Rhodes scholar, who was 13 months old when she was jailed.

Weinglass: Kathy doesn't want to make a statement she feels grateful she's been released she is quietly trying to return to a productive private life.

That will no doubt be a long road. For eight years before she was jailed, Boudin, lived underground. In 1981, she was the passenger in a getaway vehicle for an robbery that left three dead. Boudin pled guilty to murder and was given a sentence of twenty years to life. In those 20 years, she set up programs for women prisoners, teaching them how to live with AIDS and parenting at a distance. In an interview from August 2001 shortly before her first parole hearing, she expressed revulsion at her crime.

Boudin: as a prisoner I along with say my peers here we live a lot of our lives looking back at the past...when I teach a class and I listen to the mothers tell their stories about having left their children and I'm trying to help them face the reality that they left their children I always remember that not only did I leave my own child, but my participation in a crime left other children without their parents.

Boudin was denied parole that year. But in a move that shocked the families of those who died and the law enforcement community, she was granted parole last month. At her hearing, Boudin told the parole officers that, upon her release from jail, she wanted to continue the social work she began in prison. She said a similar thing in her 2001 interview.

Boudin: one of the things I thought I would like to do.. is to work with teens or with young people around the issue of violenceI think that my own role in the crime when I went into it i said oh I'm not going to be there's nothing that's going to go wrong there's not going to be any violence I'm not going to be involved in any violence my level of denial I think that teens live with that all the time

Boudin has been offered a job working with AIDS patients at St. Luke's hospital, and Lawyer Weinglass says she's considering other offers. None can be accepted without the approval of the parole department.

Weinglass says Boudin would also like to meet with the family members of the slain officers. But so far, they've expressed only dismay at her release, according to the PBA's Brent Newbury.

Newbury: They're obviously very disappointed with the decision that came out. They haven't been out there very vocal lately because they are so upset and distraught over the things that happened in the last month.

Governor Pataki is also condemning the release. The Associated Press is reporting that, as a result, he is ordering a shake-up at the parole Department.

Kathy Boudin will be on parole for the rest of her life. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.