It’s happened again. Innocent lives lost at the hands of a monster.
It began on Tuesday when Nassau County Police Officer Arthur Lopez, 29, and his partner observed a car flee the scene of an accident off Northern Boulevard at the Nassau/Queens border. The ESU officers chased the car off the Cross lsland Parkway and pulled it over at the Jamaica avenue exit. Behind the wheel was Darrell Fuller, a 33-year-old ex-con.
If only Officer Lopez had known, as he approached Fuller’s vehicle that the driver had been sentenced to five years in prison for attempted murder in 2005. And that he was arrested again in 2010, that time for selling cocaine. He was paroled for the second time recently, after serving about seven months in prison.
If he had known those things, Officer Lopez would have known that the man behind the wheel should never have been driving because he should never have been out on the street. But he didn’t know and so he approached the vehicle in a fashion routinely practiced by him and his fellow ESU workers.
Minutes later, Officer Lopez lay on the ground, his partner on the ground beside him, trying desperately to save his life. Ironically emergency medical treatment couldn’t save Arthur Lopez, but the actions of an untrained parole board could have easily prevented the officer’s tragic death.
And how many more deaths will it take? Here in New York we are sure you can vividly recall the senseless shooting of NYPD Officer Peter Figoski just before Christmas last year. He was gunned down by a man that had an extensive arrest record, had repeatedly violated parole and yet was granted the freedom to walk the streets and choose his next prey.
And what about Chen Huang an illegal Chinese immigrant who, despite a serious conviction record and history of mental illness, escaped deportation and prosecution and was set free by law enforcement shortly before he returned to finish what he had started years before—killing a woman who shunned his romantic advances.
But our city and state doesn’t suffer this travesty of justice alone. Two months after Philadelphia Police Officer Moses Walker Jr., was slain a bevy of questions is being posed to state probation and parole board members as to why suspect Rafael Jones was out on the street. He was on parole for violent offenses and had recently violated his parole on a drug related charge. But there he was, free out on the street, and with pistol in hand, he gunned down Officer Walker as he walked to a bus stop four blocks from the stationhouse after finishing his shift.
Is it not abundantly clear that individuals or groups in the position to determine an individual’s rehabilitative success or lack of it need serious oversight? The amount of innocent lives lost at the hands of violent parolees is something that represents an unacceptable failure within the American justice system.
We have, on multiple occasions, in this very space, urged you to contact your legislators with a plea for the reform of legislation that addresses this grave societal concern. With every failure of the system we urge you, again and again, to implore your elected officials to lobby for legislation that effectively addresses the parole/probation platform.
There is dire need to make modifications to release criteria and to insist on better monitoring of parolees. The use of electronic devices is a primary consideration, however the use of such devices must be accompanied by a comprehensive rehabilitation effort which not only addresses issues like anger management or drug and alcohol treatment, but that which also focuses on closer physical observation of all paroled individuals. Routine checks and mandatory face to face reviews with parole and probation officers are essential.
And in addition to heightened monitoring of criminals must go the monitoring of those in charge of making the decisions that so dramatically affect our lives—we must have strict watchdog regulations on anyone who has the power to affect a release from incarceration.
Without legislative protection and beefed up observation we are signing up for more of the same tragedy as this most recent resulting in the death of Officer Lopez. With each passing day, our failure to act as citizens is our endorsement of a very dangerous practice—we are allowing innocent lives to slip through the cracks.
