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Survivors contest 1967 murderer's parole
NORTHLAKE, Ill., The survivors of two Illinois police officers murdered in 1967 say they will contest the parole of one of the convicted killers at an upcoming hearing.
Henry Michael Gargano, now 77, and two other men killed Northlake police Detective Sgt. John Nagle and Officer Anthony Perri and wounded two other officers in the course of a bank robbery on Oct. 27, 1967, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.
Northlake police and relatives of the two dead officers said they had not been informed the U.S. Parole Commission intended to release Gargano from his 199-year sentence Sept. 3.
Johanna Markind, a lawyer for the federal parole commission, said no family members of Gargano's victims had been registered with the Bureau of Prisons, so no one was notified.
Due to the survivors' protest, the parole board has put Gargano's parole under "special reconsideration," a process leading up to another hearing, tentatively set for early August, the Tribune reported.
Northlake Deputy Police Chief Norman Nissen Jr. and others in the community have collected more than 6,000 signatures on petitions opposing the release and started a Facebook group to combat it. They filed a nearly 200-page affidavit calling for the parole commission to reconsider its decision.
"If he would show some level of remorse, any human decency, it would be easier to take," Nagle's son Robert, 49 said.
A parole board report said Gargano "will not engage in further criminal activity and … that the evidence of this is his clear conduct for the past 10 years and his advance in age and poor health."
The victims' families are preparing documents for the hearing, including reports of two of Gargano's escapes from prison and at least one planned escape; documentation of prison time still due on an earlier parole violation; and a quotation from a 1981 Chicago Tribune interview in which Gargano said, "I don't feel any remorse for those dead cops."
NORTHLAKE, Ill., The survivors of two Illinois police officers murdered in 1967 say they will contest the parole of one of the convicted killers at an upcoming hearing.
Henry Michael Gargano, now 77, and two other men killed Northlake police Detective Sgt. John Nagle and Officer Anthony Perri and wounded two other officers in the course of a bank robbery on Oct. 27, 1967, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.
Northlake police and relatives of the two dead officers said they had not been informed the U.S. Parole Commission intended to release Gargano from his 199-year sentence Sept. 3.
Johanna Markind, a lawyer for the federal parole commission, said no family members of Gargano's victims had been registered with the Bureau of Prisons, so no one was notified.
Due to the survivors' protest, the parole board has put Gargano's parole under "special reconsideration," a process leading up to another hearing, tentatively set for early August, the Tribune reported.
Northlake Deputy Police Chief Norman Nissen Jr. and others in the community have collected more than 6,000 signatures on petitions opposing the release and started a Facebook group to combat it. They filed a nearly 200-page affidavit calling for the parole commission to reconsider its decision.
"If he would show some level of remorse, any human decency, it would be easier to take," Nagle's son Robert, 49 said.
A parole board report said Gargano "will not engage in further criminal activity and … that the evidence of this is his clear conduct for the past 10 years and his advance in age and poor health."
The victims' families are preparing documents for the hearing, including reports of two of Gargano's escapes from prison and at least one planned escape; documentation of prison time still due on an earlier parole violation; and a quotation from a 1981 Chicago Tribune interview in which Gargano said, "I don't feel any remorse for those dead cops."