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| quote: | Suspect Ignites Furor In Galleria Mall Murder
Jul 1, 2005 6:55 am US/Eastern
The suspect in the killing of a 56-year-old woman at a shopping mall garage is a homeless convicted rapist who was being bused every day between White Plains and a Westchester County overnight shelter, officials said Thursday.
Phillip Grant, 43, was charged with second-degree murder and weapon possession in Wednesday's knife attack on Concetta Russo, 56, on the seventh level of the city-owned parking garage at the Galleria mall. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 25 years to life in prison.
He had not been arraigned by Thursday afternoon and he had no lawyer of record.
District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Russo, of White Plains, was a law firm receptionist with two grown children ``who was simply going to her car and had the unfortunate misfortune of coming into contact with Phillip Grant.''
The middle-of-the-day killing prompted worry about the safety of the mall _ ``where our daughters go to park and shop,'' Pirro said _ and was quickly worked into at least two political campaigns because of Grant's 1980 conviction for a Bronx rape and his status as a high-level sex offender.
Pirro, who has announced she will run for statewide office this year, said the attack illustrated the need for a bill that would subject violent sex offenders to a second trial after their sentence. Under the ``civil commitment'' proposal, a jury would determine whether a convict due for release should instead be kept in a mental institution until no longer considered dangerous.
``I am tired of liberals worried more about the criminal than about the victim,'' she said. ``I am tired of the mentality that says if they served their time we ought to allow them to roam freely.''
Noting that such a civil commitment bill has passed the state Senate, Pirro criticized Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for not allowing the Assembly to vote on it.
The chamber's leaders ``will not let this bill out of committee and shame on them,'' she said. ``They are derelict in their duty, extremely derelict.''
Silver spokesman Charles Carrier said Silver had instead proposed hearings, which have not yet been scheduled, because ``We want to get the thoughts of the people of the state, particularly those with expertise in the field, and we need to hear about what's happened in the (16) states that have these laws.''
Pirro also criticized the county for providing transportation for the homeless _ including homeless sex offenders _ who use an overnight shelter program.
``Delivering them into our cities every day ... is a tragedy,'' she said.
Susan Tolchin, chief adviser to Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, said Grant was dropped off in White Plains on Wednesday morning ``because that's where we picked him up on Tuesday night. It's where he hangs out. This is a program to keep the homeless off the streets at night. If they want a place to sleep they take our bus to the shelter at night and we drop them back at the same place in the morning. If we didn't pick him up he'd be there anyway.''
She said Grant has been using the overnight service since he was ordered out of the shelter's full-day program on April 5 for not following the rules.
Robert Astorino, the Republican candidate for county executive who has made the homeless shelters an issue, said, ``The real question is, when this man went to the shelter, were the White Plains police notified? He was in the county system, using county services. We need to know from the county executive what his Department of Social Services knew and what they would do to prevent something like this from happening again.''
Tolchin said, ``This is not a shelter issue. There are 80-odd level 3 sex offenders living in Westchester County who are free to go where they want. That's why the county executive has asked the Legislature to enact the civil commitment law to protect the women and children and families of Westchester County.'' |
Suspect Ignites Furor In Galleria Mall Murder
| quote: | Mall Stabbing
Jul 6, 2005, 4:38 pm
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) A homeless ex-convict accused of killing a woman in a parking garage near a suburban New York mall has told police he was fighting a race war -- and that he killed the woman because she was white.
Phillip Grant appeared at a court hearing yesterday in shackles and a bulletproof vest. On a videotape of his questioning by police, Grant -- who is black -- said Connie Russo-Carriero ``had to die'' because she was white. Russo-Carriero was stabbed to death last week while walking to her car.
Grant also told police he had no remorse for the killing and would hurt white people again if given the chance.
Grant faces a second-degree murder charge. Prosecutors also say he could be charged with a hate crime.
© Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. |
Mall Stabbing
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