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In less than one week, Henry Michael Gargano has a hearing for ‘special reconsideration’ to be released from prison. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know who that is. Most police officers today weren’t even born — and certainly weren’t police officers — when, during the commission of a 1967 bank robbery, Gargano and two other masked gunmen murdered Sgt. John Nagle and Officer Anthony Perri of the Northlake (Ill.) PD, and wounded two other officers. Gargano, now 78 years old, is reportedly in failing health — he’s had two heart attacks and takes at least a dozen medications for various ailments. In this excellent piece of news commentary (the first couple of paragraphs of which is in the sidebar to the immediate right), PoliceOne Senior Correspondent Chuck Remsberg writes that Gargano was “sent to juvie in Illinois at age 14 for burglarizing a restaurant. At 17, he robbed a grocery store with a sawed-off shotgun. At 20, committed armed robbery of a law firm and at 24, knocked over an Indiana bank.” He’s also escaped twice from prison, and in 1981 reportedly told the Chicago Tribune, “I don’t feel any remorse for those dead cops.” Expert AnalysisMercy for this old, sick inmate?
By Charles Remsberg Henry Gargano, confined to a federal medical correctional center in North Carolina, is 78 years old and in failing health. He’s had two heart attacks, suffers from emphysema, and takes at least a dozen medications. He’s been in prison for more than 40 years.
His record shows “clear conduct” for more than a decade, and his case manager has described him as “not a problem” but instead “a calming influence.” That examiner believes it’s unlikely he’ll ever again engage in criminal activity. Plus it’s costing two to three times more each year to keep him imprisoned than it does healthier, younger inmates.
He’s up for parole on Monday, December 13, 2010. What do you think? Time for a little compassion? Isn’t justice supposed to be tempered with mercy? Oh, did I mention that he killed two cops? Continue reading Mercy for this old, sick inmate? | Related Feature:
 | Parole is a national game of Russian Roulette It almost as if parole boards (and advocates of early release of dangerous criminals) are just loading a round into a cylinder, spinning it, and handing the weapon over to their communities. |
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In addition, Remsberg writes that numerous witnesses saw Gargano stand over two wounded officers' bodies and “fire several bullets,” killing them both. In an outstanding column written by Earl Filskov — a retired Chicago-area cop who writes for Examiner.com — it’s noted that “Guys like Henry Gargano ... are right where they belong and deserve to die there as well.” Gargano had been slated for outright release on parole back in September of this year, but “due to the survivors’ protest, the parole board has put Gargano’s parole under a process leading up to another hearing,” read one report by UPI a few months back. That hearing, as stated above, is next week. Let’s work together to prevent the parole of this killer. We’ve done it before — we successfully prevented the release of Anthony Wayne McIntosh last year. Add your comments below, or beneath Chuck Remsberg’s commentary, and we’ll send links to those comments to the folks at Northlake PD.
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