A Terrible Parole Decision

On rare occasions, there are extraordinary circumstances that can justify parole after a lengthy stretch in prison for someone involved in the killing of a police officer. Such circumstances did not exist, however, in the case of Herman Bell, who was granted parole March 14 after nearly 50 years behind bars for being one of the shooters in the 1971 murders of Police Officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini.

The ambush killing of the two cops after they were lured to a phony distress call at a housing development in Harlem was a nasty piece of business executed by three members of the Black Liberation Army, a group whose idea of social revolution was to rob banks and murder cops. It seemed to take particular pleasure in targeting cops in cases where one officer was white, the other black, as was the case here.