State House hearing on death of Philadelphia police officer

The Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee is looking into why a former inmate wasn’t being monitored when he allegedly killed a Philadelphia police officer.

State Rep. Brendan Boyle says Officer Moses Walker should not have died, but lost his life because Rafael Jones was released from prison 10 days before Walker was shot to death Aug. 18.

Boyle says Jones was supposed to be on house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet.

“A complete failure of electronic monitoring, the fact that a parole officer was told there would be no arrests even when a parolee has failed a drug test,” said Boyle, D-Philadelphia. “There were failures in the system.”

Inmates under state supervision are not required to get an ankle bracelet before their release, said Michael Potteiger, chairman of the state Board of Probation and Parole. Theoretically, parolees are supposed to get a bracelet later.

“There’s only nine counties throughout the commonwealth that actually go to the prisons and brought them back. Our policies are in compliance with about 85 percent of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he said.

Boyle says he has introduced a bill to change the regulations to make sure an ankle bracelet is affixed before a parolee is released.