In 1981, Richard Rivera murdered an off-duty police officer execution-style in a Queens bar and now he sits on a panel charged with reforming the New York police.
Per the New York Post:
The cop-killer — who murdered off-duty officer and dad-of-four Robert Walsh in 1981 — sits on a panel for Ithaca and Tompkins County as part of its “Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative.’’
The advisory group was formed after Cuomo ordered municipalities to submit police-reform plans to the state by April 1 following George Floyd’s death.
This wasn’t some bar fight gone wrong.
Walsh, who was only 36 at the time, was off-duty when he heroically tried to stop an armed robbery. He identified himself as a cop and pulled his gun. After shooting Walsh in the shoulder, Rivera “walked over to the officer as he lay helplessly wounded on the floor, pressed his gun to the cop’s head and blasted him again, authorities said.”
Rivera was 16 at the time, served 39 years, and now he sits on an upstate New York prison-reform committee as well as this police reform panel.
Look at what this bastard Rivera said: “I live my life in a way that honors and respects [Officer Walsh’s] memory,” the cop-shooter told the Post. “That is advocating for people who can’t advocate for themselves.”
What kind of monster invokes the name of the man he murdered to justify himself? What a cruel thing to do, especially to Walsh’s family. And as you might expect, Walsh’s family is not happy about this.
“We’re completely shocked that the man who murdered my father is being trusted to create police reforms,” Walsh’s 47-year-old son said through a representative. “My father dedicated his life to serving and protecting New Yorkers. He should be the one serving on a panel to help reimagine policing, but he’ll never get that chance.”
Walsh was a much-decorated cop who served 12 years on the force.
Listen, I am a big believer in second chances for convicts, and I am a big believer that once someone has served their prison time, they have served their prison time, they have paid their debt, and we need to move on. In fact, I’m one of those people who believes that once a convicted felon has served all his time (including any probation) they should be allowed to vote again.
But this Rivera thing is just nuts, a deliberate slap in the face of police officers in general and most especially Robert Walsh’s family. It’s like putting a racist who lynched a black man on the board of a black college. I don’t care how “reformed” this person claims to be…. I don’t care how reformed he might truly be… It’s an outrage and insult.
Rivera deserves a second chance, no question. But he can get that second chance by not invoking his victim’s name and by not sitting on this panel.
If this man truly was reformed and eager to make amends, he would resign from this panel out of respect for the police and for his victim’s family. Only a cruel man would accept this position.
But this what happens when Democrats are in charge. These deliberate provocations are manufactured to divide us.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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