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If the voices of New Yorkers matter, Herman Bell will remain behind bars — despite the parole board’s decision to free him.
After all, it’s not every day that 367,000 letters protest anything. Yet that’s how many the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association says its campaign to reverse the board’s decision has already drummed up.
Actually, the number’s no great shock: In 1971, Bell helped lure two NYPD cops, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, into a deadly ambush. Jones died instantly; Piagentini, hit a dozen times, begged for his life.
Instead, Bell shot Piagentini with his own gun. And he later killed another officer in California.
Freeing him now, even after more than 40 years behind bars, is an outrage; his victims, recall, didn’t get any mercy.
“Parole may be appropriate for some low-level criminals,” says PBA boss Pat Lynch, “but it is never appropriate for cop-killers.”
Lynch is right. The union has brought the board’s decision to court in the hopes of having it overturned. Let’s hope the judge pays attention to those letters.