NEW YORK -- A man convicted in the ambush shooting of two NYPD officers close to 40 years ago has been granted parole.
Anthony Bottom was previously convicted with killing officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini with two other members of the Black Liberation Army in in Harlem on May 21, 1971, according to WCBS-TV.
Changes to the state's parole guidelines and the makeup of the Parole Board granted freedom to one of the other killers, Herman Bell, in 2018. The third man convicted, Albert Washington, died in prison. Bottom will be released from prison by Oct. 20.
For decades, Diane Piagentini pleaded with the board to keep the men who murdered her husband behind bars for life.
“How in the wide world could Gov. Cuomo allow these two to get out?” she told the news station.
New York Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said cop killers should never be returned to society.
“The governor, the Legislature have changed the rules, where it’s easy for cop killers and killers of our citizens to be released, never once thinking about the victim,” he said. "We are talking about assassins walking our streets."
In three years, 16 cop killers in New York have been set free.
