NAPO Washington Reports

NAPO Statement on Commutation of Domestic Terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera

January 18, 2017


The National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) representing some 241,000 law enforcement officers across the United States, including the Patrolmen and Detectives of the NYPD, condemns the commutation of convicted terrorist and would-be cop killer Oscar Lopez Rivera.  Rivera was the bomb-making mastermind of the terrorist group FALN, who taught others how to make and use explosives.  The FALN bombed the NYPD headquarters on New Year’s Eve 1982, gravely wounding and maiming an officer and two bomb squad detectives. 

Office Rocco Pascarella lost part of his left leg below the knee and sustained serious injuries to his right leg and face, leaving him partially deaf and blind, in the bombing of NYPD headquarters.  Detectives Richard Pastorella and Anthony Senft were gravely wounded trying to disarm two bombs found across the street from headquarters. Detective Pastorella lost five fingers and was left blind and Detective Senft lost an eye and suffered severe wounds to his face and body. The bombings that shattered the lives of these three officers were the work of the FALN and Oscar Lopez Rivera, who has never renounced his terrorist acts or expressed contrition for his actions.

NAPO President Mick McHale stated, “This is just the latest demonstration of the utter contempt with which Barack Obama views police officers, their families, and the institutions that protect the public.  It’s no coincidence that Obama has unilaterally decreed that Lopez Rivera go free on May 17, during National Police Week.  The heroic officers who lost their limbs and eyesight in the FALN attack mean nothing to him.  Their families mean nothing to him.  Instead of upholding the Constitution he swore to protect, he is using the waning hours of a failed presidency to set free convicted terrorists who have devoted themselves to destroying that same Constitution.”  

NAPO’s Executive Director, Bill Johnson, added, “Barack Obama runs true to form. The budding politician who cozied up to unrepentant Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and  Bernardine Dohrn is now doing everything he can to help let other violent terrorists loose on our streets.  He’s like the angry child kicked out of school, who’s trying to break everything he can on the way out the door.”

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