Mayor de Blasio urged the state parole board to reverse its decision to free coldblooded cop-killer Herman Bell in a fiery letter to aꦇn appointee of Gov. Cuo🔯mo.
“Paroling Mr. Bell sends the dangerous signal tha🔥t killing a police officer is anything less than the most heinous of crimes,” de Blasio wrote to parole board Chairwoman Tina Stanford on Friday, blasting the “tragic and incomprehensible decision.”
Bell was one of three Black Revolutionary Army thu🍌gs who gunned down NYPD Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones in a 1971 ambush.
“Speak for voices silenced too soon. Murderingꦓ a police officer in cold blood is a crime beyond the frontiers of rehabilitation or redemption,” de Blasio wrote. “I urge the Parole Board to reverse this dꦇecision and keep Herman Bell behind bars, where his own evil actions rightly placed him.”
The letter opens a new front in the ongoing feud between de Blasio and Cuomo, who appoints all members to the board, which decided earlier this month 🌱to spring Bell in a few weeks.
De Blasio’s plea to the board is rare, but not unprecedented. In October, 2014 he asked the board, before it acted, not to pa♒role the killers who assassinated rookie NYPD Officer Edward Byrne in 1988. They were not paroled.
A spokesman for Cuomo, who previously said he “strongly” disagreed with the decision to free Bell, said he agreed🦹 with de Blasio the decision should be reversed.
But the governor earlier insisted his hands are tied because only a court can reverse the board’s decision. He added he can’t fire any members unless they did something “egreg🍰ious.’’
Bel🌄l and his pals lured Piagentini, 28, and Jones, 33, to a Harlem housing project with a phony 911 call on May 21,꧅ 1971.
They fired on the cops “for no other reason than the uniforms on t🦂heir backs and the shields on their chests,” de Blasio wrote.
Jones d🐎ied instantly but Piagentini, already hit 12 times, begged for his life, saying he had a wife and two young daughters. Bell finished Piagentini off with his own service weapon.
Three months later, Bell murdered San🅘 Francisco police Sgt. John Young in a Black Liberation Army assault on a police station.
Bell was sentenced 25 years to✱ lifeꦆ in 1979 for killing the two NYPD officers.
Today he would get life🥀 without parole — an option that wasn’t ava🌸ilable back then.
Bell cut♎ a plea deal in California for five years’ probation.
The 70 year-old killer has spent n🅠early 45 years behind bars. He claimed innocence until 2012, when he admitted he killed the New York cops.
The parole board decided to free hಌim because he expressed remorse, took responsibility for the killings and was considered un🉐likely to re-offend.