A convict who left a young cop paralyzed in a Harlem shooting 25 years ago is up for parole – and outraged law-enforcement groups are furious he’s even being considered for freedom.
Solomon Gideon – who is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence at the Elmira Correctional Facility for attempting to murder Officer William McNamara – is scheduled for his first parole hearing the week of April 7, said Thomas Grant, a spokesman for the state Division of Parole.
“We’ve gotten over 400 e-mails from various police and law-enforcement officials on Gideon in opposition to his proposed parole,” Grant said.
Gideon, 52, was convicted of attacking the then-24-year-old McNamara in June 1978 while the Housing Authority cop was on routine patrol at West 127th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.
According to trial testimony, Gideon came up to McNamara and asked him what time it was.
As McNamara looked at his watch, Gideon grabbed the officer’s .38-caliber revolver and shot him once in the chest and once in the back. Gideon then kicked and beat the wounded cop with the gun. He was reportedly high on angel dust at the time.
McNamara, now an executive at a drug company, did not return phone calls for comment. But others within the law-enforcement community readily expressed their outrage.
Thomas Scotto, head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, branded Gideon a “remorseless, irresponsible criminal” in a letter to the Division of Parole urging he be kept imprisoned. Scotto and other critics may get their wish.
It appears likely that Gideon faces an uphill battle to win freedom, since he’s been less than a model prisoner. Gideon has been cited 27 times for disciplinary infractions since 1989, said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correctional Services.