Who is Anthony Bottom? BLA member who ambushed and killed 2 NYPD cops gets parole after 43 years in jail
One of three convicted Black Revolutionary Army members who ambushed and assassinated two NYPD cops nearly half a decade ago is now set to be paroled in October, police union officials revealed Tuesday. Bottom will be released from custody by October 20, after spending more than 43 years in prison for his role in the murders of Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones in 1971, a source reportedly told Pix 11 News.
The parole board's controversial decision, of course, has upset Piagentini’s widow Diane Piagentini to no end. “We are heartbroken to see another of Joe’s killers set free by politics. But more than anything else, we are angry,” she said in a statement.
The heartbroken widow had pleaded with the board at Bottom's October 2018 parole hearing to keep her husband's killer locked up for life. “We are here for the second time giving a victim-impact statement for the denial of parole for Anthony Bottom — the killer and assassinator of my husband, Joseph Piagentini, and his partner, Waverly Jones,” she told reporters before speaking in front of the board at the time. “Anthony Bottom never ever should be released from prison. My husband and Waverly Jones are not coming home, and Anthony Bottom should never be released … He swore at the sentencing he could never be rehabilitated. If he gets out he will continue to work for his cause," she added.
Piagentini had also written to the board in August this year, urging officials not to release Bottom. "He's a BLA militant," she said. "He wants to kill cops. He has not been rehabilitated."
Nonetheless, Bottom was granted parole after he appealed the board's October 2019 decision denying his release. According to the report, Bottom, Herman Bell, and Albert Washington were convicted after they lured Piagentini and Jones to a Harlem housing project with a bogus 911 call. Once the officers responded to the scene, the trio assassinated them in cold blood.
Bell was freed on parole in April 2018 after 40 years in prison. Washington, however, succumbed to liver cancer in 2000 while still in prison. Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, blamed the state leadership and the policies they are enforcing for Bottom's release. “Gov. Cuomo and the State Legislature have spent years torturing crime victims, especially the hero families of fallen police officers,” Patrick Lynch said in a statement. "They knew that changing the parole guidelines would unleash more vicious killers like Anthony Bottom back onto our streets," he continued. "They have chosen to stand with the murderers, cold-blooded assassins, and radicals bent on overthrowing our society. We have now seen 16 cop killers released in less than three years. We will continue to see more unless New Yorkers wake up and speak out against the madness being done in their names."
In 2018, Lynch stood alongside Piagentini and spoke out after Bottom's parole hearing. “I don’t know who our elected officials are speaking for or why they think letting cop killers out in the street is acceptable, but they are certainly not speaking for the people who live, work, and visit this city. And I can tell you this, as a New York City police officer and for our families, this is not acceptable," Lynch told reporters at the time. “If they kill a cop, they will kill anyone,” he added. “We are asking for common sense to come back home. We need common sense to go upstairs into its parole board and do its job. Unfortunately, the commissioners don’t have that common sense, so we have to make them find it.”