Judicial system must protect police, public
Weymouth police officer Michael Chesna died doing the job he’d always wanted. He enlisted in the Army and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had hoped his service in the military would aid in his law enforcement career. Yesterday would have been his sixth anniversary as a Weymouth police officer.
America has lost a man who put his country before himself and Weymouth has lost a hero who ran straight at danger in service to the public.
It is a heartbreaking loss. The 42-year-old leaves a wife and two young children, ages 4 and 9. Little children should be thinking about the tooth fairy, not funeral protocol.
We are thankful that the law enforcement community and the community at large are embracing the grieving family. We owe a debt to the families of those who have lost their lives protecting us.
It is also prudent that we ascertain whether the justice system did enough to protect officer Chesna.
We know that the suspect in his death, Emanuel “Manny” Lopes, 20, of Weymouth has a history of run-ins with police. He was arrested in October on charges of selling cocaine to minors and fleeing from police. He was held on $5,000 bail. The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on his criminal history yesterday. Weymouth police wrote in the October arrest report that Lopes is well-known to local authorities: “We have fought with him before,” The Patriot Ledger reported.
As the Herald’s Laurel Sweet reported, the 6-foot, 3-inch Lopes has been free on $500 bail since November. Lopes was arrested in Weymouth on Oct. 3 on charges of dealing cocaine at a beach party for minors and resisting arrest. He was due to return to Quincy District Court on July 30 for a discovery hearing.
According to reports, Lopes shot officer Chesna five times in the head. That is willful assassination. How is it that such a violent person who police had encounters with previously, and who had recently been arrested for dealing cocaine to minors and resisting arrest, was set free on just $500 bail?
It is outrageous that Lopes was a free man. Once again, Massachusetts has erred on the side of the criminal and now a police officer and an elderly woman are dead.
This April, it was Thomas Latanowich who was free to kill Yarmouth police officer Sean Gannon. Latanowich had a long arrest record and served a sentence in state prison from 2010 to 2014. Last year, while already on probation, he was hauled into court to answer for domestic violence charges for strangling his pregnant girlfriend. Latanowich, who had more than 100 criminal charges on his record, would soon be out on the streets.
Frederick Q. Amfo, 30, a Ghanian national, was charged with the April 8 early-morning rape of Emily Murray of Weymouth. On April 13, he posted $10,000 bail and was freed on the condition he turn over his passport. Instead, he jumped on a flight to Ghana.
Last year, an illegal immigrant named Luis Baez was accused of raping an inebriated Boston College student in his Uber car in the fall of 2016. Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Raquel Frisardi told Newton District Court Judge Mary Beth Heffernan that Baez took the student to multiple sites and raped her three times even as she was vomiting and fighting back. Incredibly, Heffernan set bail at $2,500 and in no time Baez disappeared.
Some of these criminals benefited from procedural realities and some from irresponsible judges who prioritized compassion over the well-being of the community.
Residents of the commonwealth deserve better and we must demand better.