Here are a few more thoughts I had concerning the cop-killer in Philadelphia who had been granted parole.

This comes as we learn of still another troubling incident involving the release of another violent offender.

Edward Burgess was involved in a struggle with a Philadelphia officer. He got the upper hand and beat the officer, then went for his gun.

Burgess, who has 13 prior arrests, was arrested after other officers arrived on the scene. He faces a slew of charges including aggravated assault.

But on Sept. 22, Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Rosalyn K. Robinson issued an order allowing Burgess to be released on house arrest as he awaits trial. That’s not scheduled until March 25, 2009.

The order came the day before Officer Patrick McDonald was fatally shot by Daniel Giddings, who was out on parole after serving 10 of 12 years on a violent carjacking.

Police and the D.A.’s office are not thrilled about the judge’s ruling in the Burgess case. They’ve filed a detainer that kept Burgess behind bars and will seek a reconsideration of the ruling.

In the meantime, furious police officials are beginning to wonder just whose side the law is on.

Can you blame them?

Here are my thoughts on the McDonald case:


It is the same agonizing scene, one we’ve become all too accustomed to viewing.
A sea of men and women in blue, slowly filing into the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. Awaiting them inside is a flag-draped casket. They have come, joined by grieving family, friends, and city officials, to once again bury one of their own.
The city bid goodbye to Highway Patrolman Patrick McDonald on Tuesday. His badge was permanently retired. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey indicated he would be promoted posthumously to the rank of sergeant.
There were tributes, all testament to what we’ve lost. There were knowing nods, plenty of tears, and even a few smiles.
But there was also a piercing, palpable sense of anger.
That’s because this never should have happened. McDonald was gunned down last week after a routine traffic stop. What happened after he stopped that vehicle was anything but routine.
Inside was 27-year-old Daniel Giddings. He was a stranger to Officer McDonald, but no stranger to the law.
Giddings had his first brush with the justice system when he was just 10 years old. It was not his last.
In 1998, Giddings was involved in a violent carjacking and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to six to 12 years in jail. That in itself raised a few eyebrows. He could have been sentenced to as much as 45 years for the carjacking, in which he shot his victim in the kneecaps.
Giddings had served 10 years of that stretch when, for some reason, he was deemed worthy of parole, this despite a lengthy list of violations he racked up while behind bars.
In August he was granted parole and released to a halfway house. It did not take long for him to revert to familiar habits.
He fled the halfway house after about a week. Then he was involved in a violent confrontation with police. It was at that time that Giddings made a prophetic – and violent – prediction. He vowed he would never go back to prison again and would kill as many cops as he could who were trying to prove otherwise.
Officer McDonald didn’t know that. He was making a routine stop. Giddings fled. McDonald chased him. In the gun battle that followed, McDonald was wounded. Then Giddings revealed the traits that later led cops to descbrive him as “just evil.”
Giddings stood over the fallen officer and fired several more shots into him in what can only be described as an exeuction.
Giddings was fatally shot in a subsequent shooting with other officers in which still another policeman was injured.
As police officers prepared for another funeral, the fifth city officer to be slain on duty in the last three years and ninth to be shot just in the past 12 months.
They did so through gritted teeth, knowing that Giddings had no business being back on the street.
Daniel Giddings was a free man courtesy of the state Board of Probation and Parole.
Then they did something that’s usually done to them. They raised their voice in protest, calling for an end to such early releases.
Their anguished plea was heard – as far away as Harrisburg.
On the eve of Officer McDonald’s funeral, Gov. Ed Rendell announced he was temporarily halting the early release of violent inmates and named a Temple University professor to lead a review of the parole procedures.
It was the right call.
There is much to be said for giving offenders a second chance, and for time behind bars being used to rehabilitate.
Giddings, even though he used his time behind bars to receive his high school degree, did not seem to grasp either concept. That did not stop him from being released. And it didn’t stop him from reverting to his violent behavior once back on the street.
Rendell made it clear he believes there are problems with the system. We agree.
Daniel Giddings will never be eligible for parole again. But other violent offenders likely will be
Rendell’s temorary halt to more releases comes too late for Officer McDonald and those who mourn his loss. It will not bring back the fallen officer. It will not ease the pain felt across this region at the loss of still another person in uniform.
But perhaps the examination will prevent such a mistake from happening again.
And insure we never have to go through this horror again.