‘No One Rested'

It's hard to recall a more dramatic case of the danger of paroling the murderers of police officers than the astonishing arrests yesterday. Seized in prison were two killers — Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom — who've been in prison for 35 years for the 1971 murders of New York Police Department Officers Joseph Piagentini, 28, and Waverly Jones, 33. It was on a Harlem street that Bell and Bottom ambushed the two officers as they responded to a call for help. Bell and Bottom shot Piagentini four times in the back of the head, and Jones 12 times as he begged for mercy. Their pleas for parole have become a cause celebre on the political left here, but so far to little avail.

While the State of New York was checking to see whether two unrepentant murderers had been rehabilitated, the NYPD and the San Francisco Police Department were tallying up the extent of Bell and Bottom's killing spree. Yesterday their work bore fruit when Bell and Bottom were indicted, along with a third New Yorker, Francisco Torres, in another murder, that of a sergeant of the San Francisco police, John Young. The latest charges and the arrest of five others accused in the Black Panther terror spree back in 1971 speak to the dedication of detectives in both departments as they did their jobs and pursued justice.

Police Commissioner Kelly said that today's arrests "only reinforce my opposition to the parole in New York of Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom. They shot two New York City police officers in the back as part of a series of assassinations directed against police officers in those murderous days." He noted that the murder of Sergeant Young took place just three months after Bell and Bottom shot Officers Jones and Piagentini in the back on a Harlem Street. Then he said: "It may have been 35 years ago, but I certainly haven't forgotten. Neither has anyone who was a member of the police department back then." He noted that the murder of Sergeant Young and of Officers Jones and Piagentini "were linked." And he said, "No one rested until their killers were brought to justice." It's a good phrase to remember at a time like this. "No one rested."