By Jason Hopkins, Daily Caller News Foundation | December 23, 2024
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) chapter representing officers in Columbus, Ohio, slammed President Joe Biden’s Monday decision to commute the death sentence of a man who murdered a Columbus police officer in 2005.
Daryl Lawrence, convicted for killing Columbus Division of Police Officer Bryan Hurst during an attempted bank robbery, was among the 37 convicts on federal death row whose sentences Biden commuted Monday in the waning days of his presidency. FOP Capital City Lodge #9 called the decision to commute Lawrence’s sentence an “inexcusable affront” in a statement released after the White House announced the commutations.
“The decision to commute the sentence of Daryl Lawrence is an inexcusable affront to the memory of Officer Bryan Hurst and the law enforcement community as a whole,” said Brian Steel, president of the Columbus chapter of the FOP. “Bryan made the ultimate sacrifice, and this decision undermines the justice that was rightfully served for his murder. We owe it to Bryan and to all officers who put their lives on the line every day to continue advocating for justice.”
At 33 years old, Hurst was working on special duty at a Columbus bank when he was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Lawrence as he tried to rob it, according to The Columbus Dispatch. He left behind a widow, Marissa Gibson, and has one surviving daughter.
“While this is truly distressing news on a personal level for my family, it also feels like a complete dismissal and undermining of the federal justice system,” Gibson told the outlet in response to Biden’s decision. “Lawrence’s sentence was imposed by a jury, and it should be upheld as such.”
Donnie Oliverio, a retired Columbus police officer who was Hurst’s partner, told The Washington Post that he supports the commutation because it is in line with his faith and that “putting to death the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”
Beyond Lawrence, the 37 people Biden took off death row on Monday include individuals convicted for murdering children, elderly women and other prisoners. Monday’s commutations follow Biden’s recent decisions to commute the sentences of narcotics traffickers and notorious fraudsters, as well as grant his son Hunter a blanket pardon that covers all potential criminal activity dating back to 2014.
Notably, Biden decided to keep only three convicted killers on federal death row in his Monday commutations. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the terrorists responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the mass-murderers who perpetrated the shootings at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue and the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, were left off of Biden’s commutations list.
Jason Hopkins is an immigration reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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