Police Union Sues To Block Release Of Harlem Cop Killer

HARLEM, NY — New York City's police union is suing the New York State Board of Parole to block the release of a man convicted for the 1971 killings of two NYPD officers in Harlem, the union announced Thursday.

The Patrolman's Benevolent Association filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Diane Piagentini, the widow of slain officer Joseph A. Piagentini, seeking to overturn the parole board's decision to release Bell from prison, the union announced. The lawsuit also names the board's chairwoman, Tina M. Stanford, as a defendant.

"This Parole Board blew the call by making a decision to release this cold-blooded assassin without having considered all of the facts as the law requires," Patrolman's Benevolant Association President Patrick J. Lynch said in a statement.

The union's lawsuit claims that the parole board ignored the statements and intentions of the sentencing judge and prosecuting district attorney by granting Bell release. At the time of Bell's sentencing, 25 years to life in prison was the maximum sentence allowable, but under today's laws Bell would receive a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the union's lawsuit claims.

The Patrolman's Benevolent Association lawsuit demands that Bell's parole be overturned and that a new panel rehear his case for parole. A judge ruled in favor of the union's request that Bell's release be put on hold for the duration of the union's lawsuit against the parole board. The earliest possible date Bell could have been released was April 17, according to the state Department of Corrections.

"There are some crimes so heinous that those who commit them forever forfeit their right to freedom. Herman Bell was convicted after the death penalty was declared unconstitutional and before the sentence of life without parole was instituted," Diane Piagentini said in a statement. "The judge and prosecutor at his trial made it clear that he should never get out of prison."

Bell is currently being held in the Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Ulster County, according to the state Department of Corrections. Bell was admitted to the facility in 1979, according to the state.

Bell, Anthony Bottom and Albert Washington lured officers Piagentini and Waverly Jones to the Colonial Park Houses on West 159th Street on the night of May 21, 1971 by calling in a fake report of a crime at the location. When Piagentini and Jones were returning to their vehicle after investigating, they were ambushed by the three men from behind and shot to death.

The three gunmen were members of the Black Liberation Army, a militant group that later took credit for the killings as part of a war on police, the New York Times reported. Bell, Bottom and Washington were each sentenced to serve 25 years to life in prison, the Times reported.

Bell had previously been denied parole seven times before the state parole board ruled in his favor on March 14, the Times reported. Both New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill spoke out against the parole board's decision.

Photo courtesy NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill