Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he strongly disagrees with a parole board’s decision to grant parole to an ex-radical convicted in the 1971 killings of two police officers.
The Democrat told reporters at Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day parade that the parole board’s decision to let Herman Bell go free sometime after April 17, 2018, sends the wrong signal.
The board announced Wednesday it was granting parole to the 70-year-old one-time Black Liberation Army member, described as a model inmate. Bell served 44 years behind bars.
Bell’s supporters include relatives of one slain officer. He’d been denied parole seven times before.
The officers were shot multiple times after responding to a domestic violence report at a Harlem public housing complex in May 1971. Prosecutors said Bell and an accomplice had set a trap.
Photo credit: FILE – In this 1998 file photo provided by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, inmate Herman Bell is shown. Convicted of killing a New York City police officer in 1971, Bell is scheduled to go before the Parole Board for a sixth time during the week of Feb. 17, 2014. The powerful Policemans Benevolent Association believes Bell belongs in prison but his supporters say that he has been a model inmate and is rehabilitated. (AP Photo/New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, File)
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