NYPD officer's widow pleads with parole board to keep husband's killer in jail
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The widow of a New York City police officer killed in the line of duty is pleading with the New York State Parole Board to keep her husband's killer behind bars.
Officer Gerard Carter was in a marked police van on Staten Island in July 1998 when parolee Shatiek Johnson opened fire without warning and killed him.
"To allow someone out who killed three times out is astronomically crazy to us," said Jozette Carter-Williams.
She wants the man who killed her husband to stay behind bars and addressed the media Friday ahead of delivering her victim impact statement before the board.
"What it should be, is life without the possibility of parole if you kill a police officer," Carter-Williams said.
Instead, Shatiek Johnson is up for parole after serving nearly 25 years in prison.
"He had his chance, he was released and he went back to his violent ways, this can't be 'let's give him a hearing and see how he's doing in jail,'" said PBA President Pat Lynch.
The family of the father, husband and son is fighting to keep his memory alive in one of the first in-person appeals since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"New York police officers are the best police officers out there and I pride myself in saying that Gerard was one of them," Carter-Williams said.
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