Mercy Me?

Presented without comment:  Detective Daniel Hersl of the Baltimore City Police and his fellow convicted members of the Gun Trace Task Force have cost the city $22.2 million ...and counting....across 39 settlements related to the task force’s misconduct.    

These men and their crimes were seen on TV news, smacking the city in the face with another bruise. Armed with weapons, they literally stomped on citizens, and, figuratively, their constitutional rights, all under the direction of Sgt. Wayne Jenkins. Ostensibly, the task force was set up to get guns off the streets, and violent criminals into prison cells. But the corruption ran rampant as the members of the unit set people up for baseless searches., or robbed them, or they carried toy guns and planted them as phony evidence to cover up their assaults. And they bragged about stealing money in the form of putting in for overtime they did not work - and were, in some cases, not even in the city that was paying them at the time.

 

  

Hersl at the scene of a lawful public assembly in 2015.The stances of the other officers in the picture would indicate that he is the only one who saw it as a combat situation.

Most of this pack of rogues seemed interested solely in garnering as much money as they could steal or extort, in some cases burying metal cash boxes in their yards. But Hersl was known all over for pure brutality. He took fiendish delight in demeaning his victims, not content with just taking their money. He broke a woman's arm. He poured beer on one woman and then hit her in the face with a bottle. 

Found guilty on racketeering charges in 2018, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison. 

In February of this year, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which has metastasized to his lymph nodes, liver, and lungs. Scott Moose, the medical officer at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, attests that Hersl, 53, has less than 18 months left to live. And now he has filed a motion seeking compassionate release, hoping to spend his remaining days living with his 16-year-old son.

I am so, so glad that I am not the person who will decide whether this...this gut-wrenching, foul person...deserves early release from prison.