Killer parole
Black militant in ’71 murders OKd for freedom
A FORMER Black Liberation Army member who’s been behind bars nearly 45 years for killing two cops in 1971 has been granted parole, authorities said Wednesday.
A state Parole Board approved Herman Bell’s release following a hearing March 1 — Bell’s eighth, officials said.
He’s expected to be released in April, officials said.
Bell, 70, Anthony Bottom and Albert Washington ambushed Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones after luring them to the Colonial Park Houses — now the Rangel Houses — on W. 159th St. with a bogus 911 call on May 21, 1971.
Jones was shot in the head and died instantly, but the three suspects took their time with Piagentini — shooting him 22 times.
Piagentini begged for his life before the end, telling Bell and his cohorts that he had a wife and two children at home.
Cops arrested Bell after he traveled to the West Coast, where he killed another cop, officials said. He was arrested in 1973 and convicted of killing the two NYPD cops in 1979.
In 2009, Bell also pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the August 1971 murder of Sgt. John Young in San Francisco.
For the last few decades, Bell has made a case for his release, his lawyer Robert Boyle said.
“He has satisfied all the criteria for parole, he has expressed remorse, he has an unblemished prison record and he’s been extremely involved in helping others inside,” Boyle said. “It is only correct that the Parole Board apply the law in this controversial case and granted him parole and we are gratified they did so.”
Boyle said Bell is pleased with the Parole Board’s decision, but won’t make a statement “out of respect for the victims and their families.”
Piagentini’s widow, Diane, demanded the Parole Board be fired.
“We are angered and sickened that this horrible person, who was devoid of any human compassion or empathy when he continued to shoot my already wounded husband, Joseph, while he pleaded for his life for the sake of his family, will now be free to walk out of prison,” she said.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill said the Parole Board’s decision to free Bell is “indefensible.”
Word of Bell’s release also outraged the city’s largest police union.
“There are no words to express our anger and disgust that they have granted release to a coldblooded cop killer who successfully gamed the system in two states to win his freedom,” Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said.