In a statement released Wednesday, the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York said 68-year-old Anthony Bottom, who now calls himself Jalil Abdul Mutagim, could be released on parole as early as next month.
Bottom was convicted in the murder of two New York City Police Department officers in 1971. At the time, he was a member of the Black Liberation Army.
He has served more than 43 years in New York state prison after his incarceration in 1977.
At the time of the killing, Bottom and two other BLA members had traveled from California to New York specifically to assassinate police officers.
Pix 11 reported that the killers lured two patrol officers, one black and one white, to Harlem with a fake 911 call.
The NYC PBA said when the officers got to the Colonial Park Houses the assassins opened fire.
They shot 33-year-old Waverly Jones five times. He died instantly.
27-year-old Joseph Piagentini was initially wounded. The statement from NYC PBA said he was pleading for his life, “invoking his wife and two daughters,” when one of the BLA members “emptied two guns into the already seriously wounded officer.”
Piagentini died on the way to the hospital. His widow said he had 22 bullet holes in his body. Diane Piagentini told Pix 11:
“He (Bottom) used Joe’s gun to complete the killing because they were running out of bullets.”
His killers were convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In the statement from NYC PBA, she said her family is “heartbroken to see another of Joe’s killers set free by politics. But more than anything else, we are angry.”
She continued to say, they will continue to push back:
“Gov. Cuomo and the Albany Democrats might think they’ve won. They might think they’ve broken us. We have a message for them: We are not going anywhere. We will not go away until they are held accountable for the hell they’ve put us through. I owe that to my husband. My daughters owe that to their father. And we owe it to every forgotten and ignored crime victim in New York State.”
Two years ago, she fought against the release of Bottom’s co-conspirator, Herman Bell.
Bell was ultimately paroled in April 2018.
The third man involved in the crime, Albert Washington, died in prison.
Last October, Bottom was denied parole and appealed the decision to the state’s Supreme Court.
On August 10 of this year, a judge granted him a new hearing. The NYC PBA said he ordered the board to “provide an individualized explanation for departing from the completely low COMPAS [Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanction] risk scores.”
The COMPAS assessment tool scores inmates and factors into a parole board’s decision making, in line with 2011 amendments to the New York’s Executive Law.
Ahead of Bottom’s appearance in front of the parole board, Pix 11 reported that Piagentini wrote to the board and called Bottom “a BLA militant” who “wants to kill cops” and “has not been rehabilitated.”
The media outlet said she was not allowed to actually attend the hearing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She does not believe his release is in anyway tied to the pandemic.
The NYC PBA slammed the decision.
In a statement, the organization’s president Patrick Lynch wrote:
“We are furious with the cowards and lunatics who claim to lead this state. Gov. Cuomo and the State Legislature have spent years torturing crime victims, especially the hero families of fallen police officers.
They knew that changing the parole guidelines would unleash more vicious killers like Anthony Bottom back onto our streets. They have chosen to stand with the murderers, cold-blooded assassins and radicals bent on overthrowing our society.”
He continued on to say that in the last three years, the state has released 16 cop killers from custody.
He’s not the first cop killer being paroled recently.
Richmond, Virginia – The man convicted of murdering Richmond Police Officer Michael Connors back in 1979 showcased the epitome of “audacity” after his granted parole when he recently spoke about how the “racist society and racist system” in prison is to blame for all his troubles.
Despite witness testimony pointing him as the killer of Officer Connors, he’s playing the victim and proclaiming he was innocent all along.
Article continued:
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/...6c5HCQg_ErvnBU