THREE TIME COP KILLER TO WALK FREE
Officers Piagentini and Waverly are forever Honored, Remembered,
and
Respected for their Service and Sacrifice
TAGS: OFFICERS PIAGENTINI AND WAVERLY
ASSASSINATED, BLACK PANTHER MURDERERS,
HERMAN BELL PAROLED, THE “WAR YEARS”, 32ND
PRECINCT, RACIAL STRIFE,
OFFICERS AMBUSHED – MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD,
SPRING 3100
(Wednesday
March 14, 2018, 32nd Precinct, 250 West 135th St.) He has an
official website. He has earned degrees,
written all sorts of doggerel, and radical tripe. He has the support of some ill-informed,
arrogant Hollywood backers who have adopted his plight as their cause celebre. He has allegedly spent the last 45 years
living with an unblemished record. On
May 21, 1971 he ambushed two NYPD Officers with a bogus 911 call and murdered
them in cold blood. One of the young
Officers, Waverly Jones, died immediately after being shot. The other Officer, Joseph Piagentini the
father of two young girls plead for his life.
Herman Bell tortured the mortally wounded Officer shooting him 22 times
delivering the final rounds from Joseph Piagentini’s
own gun. He was an active member of the
Black Liberation Army, a violent radical group birthed during the racial strife
of the late 1960’s. Bell, until very recently, had never expressed any remorse
for his role as an executioner. Quite
the contrary as is evidenced by some of his prison writings. And now, perhaps
as early as the end of the month, Herman Bell, now 70, will walk out of the Shawangunk
Correctional Facility in Wallkill a free man. To label this act a travesty of
justice is a gross understatement. That the New York State Parole Board has
granted this Cop killer his freedom is an insult to all who are and have ever
served in the NYPD and Law Enforcement writ large.
There
are many parties to this travesty, many groups and individuals who have worked
over the years to recast Bell as someone he is not – a “changed man”. He only admitted to having some small degree
of remorse before his parole hearing in 2016 when he calculated that doing so
might be advantageous to his cause. The
fact of the matter is that for virtually his entire prison sentence he enjoyed
some notoriety in the twisted subculture among incarcerated convicts, precisely
because he was a “Cop killer”. His
street reputation and Black Liberation Army (BLA) credentials afforded him a
comfortable life in the various facilities where he served his time. Bell saw
himself as a “political prisoner”, an activist and “a tireless soldier in the
fight for justice”. He has never
disavowed his allegiance to the BLA and the Black Panthers.
Speaking
earlier this morning with an old acquaintance, a retired Correction Officer who
had served many years in a penitentiary where Bell was housed recalled some of
his observations from over a dozen years ago.
Asking to be referred to only by his first name, Matt, he recounted
that, “Bell back in those days had never lost his nigger swagger…you know that
kinda hitch in the step strut that all the niggers used to have”. Matt continued, “He (Bell) enjoyed something
of a charmed life inside because of his status as an “OG” -an Original Gangsta,
because he was “Old School”, and most definitely because he was a Cop
killer. The younger convicts treated him
like royalty and Bell always had a smirk on his face when I interacted with him
or any CO spoke with him. It was a
condescending smirk if that can be said but...you know what I mean. It is a sad day for so many knowing this fuck
who participated in the murder of 3 Police Officers will soon be out”.
The
world has moved on, times have changed since the “War Years” in large cities
across the country infected by virulent racial strife, open warfare against Law
Enforcement Officers, and the cultural and societal upheaval that it may be
difficult for younger people to understand.
But, we remember; we, of a certain age, remember all too vividly those
days. We remember at odd times and when
we each make a private pilgrimage to the NYPD Memorial Wall in Battery
Park. We, NYPD has a historic memory and
an institutional memory. There is an unbroken
cord that runs all the way back to 1900, to 3100 Spring Street, that binds all
the men and women who have ever served and serve to this day. We are bound in
duty and honor; bound by the sacrifices of service, the fact that we are indeed
all Brothers and Sisters serving for a greater good but also giving our utmost
for those we work with. Our loyalty is
neither blind nor blinding.
When
we stand in front of that marble wall and trace our fingers over the engraved
names we are most familiar with and those whose stories have been passed down
by our seniors when we were just out of the Academy and beyond, we feel the
connection and know full well the meaning of “But for the Grace of God there go
I”. Ours can be a brutal business; ours
is often a risky endeavor. But it is
what each of us has chosen and with our choice comes the obligations, powerful
obligations to the NYPD as a whole and those we serve with and those we seek to
protect.
Yes,
Herman Bell will walk out of prison a free man, allegedly a “changed” man
deemed so by the NY State Parole Board to be “no longer a threat to society”. How does the Parole Board make such a
determination, how can they act with any degree of certainty? How does a panel composed of politically
appointed flackies and hacks make this kind of decision? Are they clairvoyant, do they possess the
uncanny ability to see inside a murders mind and soul? No, it’s all a crap shoot, and they hope for
the best.
Bell’s
family, for what it is 40 years hence can celebrate his homecoming. He can return to his peers as a hero having
survived incarceration. Members of the Waverly Family may have forgiven Bell;
for the record, none of the Piagentini Family has done so. To them and all of NYPD this decision stands
as an insult. Those of us remaining who remember
those dark days and the atrocities committed by Herman Bell can only hope he
suffers a long, protracted painful fatal disease. Divine retribution, Celestial
justice is our only desire.
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Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2018 © All Rights Reserved
