Ex-militants who admit killing NY cops seek parole
Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Since they became eligible for parole a decade ago, two aging ex-members of a militant black power group serving 25-years-to-life sentences for the 1971 killings of two New York City police officers have been routinely rejected for release after displaying little or no remorse.
Starting this week, Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom will again go before the state Parole Board to ask for freedom. But this time, it will be after admitting for the first time that they were involved in the execution-style slayings.
The admissions have reignited a debate over whether the men, who still call themselves political prisoners, have become rehabilitated after four decades in prison or are simply more willing to game the system.
"As long as they keep admitting they're political prisoners, then they aren't taking responsibility for their actions," said Diane Piagentini, the widow of one of the slain officers who still lives in the same Long Island home she bought with him before he was killed at 28. "They should never be paroled."
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ex-militants-who-admit-killing-ny-cops-seek-parole
In 1989, the New York Times reported:
Robert K. Tanenbaum was the assistant district attorney in Manhattan who prosecuted the case and later wrote a book about it, ''Badge of the Assassin'' (E. P. Dutton, 1979). In a telephone interview last week, he dismissed the idea that the police targeted black nationalists and insisted that the three defendants had been found ''overwhelmingly guilty.'' Mr. Tanenbaum, now a senior partner in Riordan & McKinzie, a law firm in Los Angeles, described the petitioners' move to reopen the case as ''an example that there is no finality to the criminal justice system.''
The incident that precipitated the case occurred on May 21, 1971, when Officers Joseph A. Piagentini and Waverly M. Jones were fatally shot outside the Colonial Park Houses in Harlem by two assailants.
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