Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on Wednesday ripped the state's prison authorities for paroling a former Black Liberation Army (BLA) member convicted of murdering two police officers in the 1970s.
"We are slowly losing control of the republic created by our forefathers," Kerik said in a Facebook post. "Parents have allowed schools, social media, the music industry and Hollywood to assume the role of molding of their children.
"We no long teach civics or a love for our country in our classrooms," he added. "Children have no respect for others or the elderly, and they have no value for life."
New York state prison officials on Wednesday granted parole to Herman Bell, now 70, one of three former BLA members who gunned down city officers Joseph Piagentini, 28, and Waverly Jones, 33, in Harlem in May 1971.
The officers had responded to a 911 call of a domestic dispute in a Harlem housing development — and the three opened fire as they approached.
Jones died at the scene and Piagentini, who was hit 12 times, was then killed by Bell with his own service revolver.
Bell and two others — known as the "New York 3" — were convicted in 1975 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Bell was captured in 1973, after two years on the run.
In 2009, they accepted plea deals for their roles in the fatal shooting of a San Francisco police sergeant in August 1971 — and Bell admitted guilt for the first time to the New York killings in a 2012 parole hearing.
The BLA included members of the Black Panther Party and operated in the U.S. from 1970 to 1981.
In his Facebook post, Kerik referenced a 1979 book on the slayings, "Badge of the Assassin" and said: "Never thought I would see the day that Herman Bell would walk out of a prison a free man.
"I blame the governor, the mainstream media, and our liberal educators for his freedom.
"I find it beyond comprehension, how a parole board — how anyone — could … set Herman Bell free," he said.
"Would their leniency be so, if Jones or Piagentini were related to them — a father, brother, or son."
Kerik called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo — if he "had any decency" — to remove those who granted Bell's freedom from the state board.
"But I don't think that will happen," he said. "So, society will continue its decay."
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