Seattle Cops Killing, Huckabee’s Statement: Weasel Words for Victims’ Families
HUCKABEE’S FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO SHIFT BLAME
POLICE HAVE SUSPECT HOLED UP, MAY BE DEAD
Updates at End of post–
Updated @ 1300: Suspect in officer killings eludes law in Seattle
Within hours of the news that suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons had been granted clemency by then-Governor Mike Huckabee, a statement was released on the HuckPac website.
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Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State. He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990, this commutation made him parole eligible and he was then paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him. It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state.
HuckPac will have to do better than that to keep the taint of Huckabee’s ill-considered clemency grant to a multiple cop killer away from the former Arkansas governor.
The HuckPac statement doesn’t mention the biggest failure in the Arkansas criminal justice system: Huckabee’s own well-documented record of releasing violent offenders back into the community to commit more crimes. The Clemmons case sparked one Arkansas prosecutor to state, “This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time.”
Larry Jegley is prosecuting attorney for Arkansas’ Pulaski County.
As Michelle Malkin notes, this was not Huckabee’s first “Willie Horton Moment”. [Violent felon granted clemency by Huckabee now sought in Lakewood, WA police ambush; Update: Huck PAC posts statement; Update: SWAT team surrounds Clemmons’ family home]
Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protestations of prosecutors.
“This disaster is just one of Huckabee’s ill-considered clemency legacies.”
Huckabee has stated within the last week that “it’s not likely I’ll run in 2012″.
After the events of the last 24 hours, it’s unlikely a Huckabee candidacy would garner much support in the law enforcement community.
LATEST:
Whether Clemmons remains alive or not is still subject to speculation: Police: Suspect in police deaths hurt, maybe dead.
A suspect in the slaying of four police officers who were gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was holed up at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, police said.
Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod him from hiding.
MORE: Cop killer suspect dead?
LATEST: Suspect in officer killings eludes law in Seattle
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