Posted on 02/19/2016 11:43:23 AM PST by rickmichaels
In October of 2014, Steven Pratt was supposed to begin his life anew.
He had served out a 30-year prison sentence and gone home to Atlantic City, N.J., where his family held a party to welcome him.
But a violent history would repeat itself all too soon.
Pratt was 15 when he got into an argument with his next-door neighbour, Michael Anderson. Court records show that Anderson was a father figure of sorts to Pratt.
On Oct. 11, 1984, he asked Pratt and his friends to vacate a hallway in their apartment building where they were noisily hanging out and smoking marijuana.
Angered by Andersonâs request, Pratt retrieved a lead pipe from his apartment and approached Anderson with it in hand. Anderson wrestled the pipe from Prattâs grasp, striking him on the face.
Then Prattâs mother entered the room, and Anderson left.
Hours later, Pratt knocked on the door of Andersonâs apartment. When the neighbour appeared, Pratt asked him if he recalled their fight earlier that day, then shot him dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
They’ve got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called “recidivism.” ... Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?
If this isn’t an argument for the death penalty, I don’t know what is.
What a waste.
Just take him out back and put him down like the violent dog he is.
He had 30 years to plan it.
Pratt looks to be a stocky 300 lbs.
Another harmless pothead.
Hmm...well, he went straight for two whole days. Think of it as a glass half-full...
There is no way an animal like should be able to violently murder TWO people, and serve full sentences for those murders and get out at 70 years old.
That's not justice.
Didn’t miss any meals in the jail eh?
Those of us in the criminal justice field call situations like this “Job Security”. As long as human nature has moments like this, my job ain’t going nowhere.
CC
in 1984 ... retrieved a lead pipe from his apartment
= = =
Lead, really?
Since I can remember such things (starting around 1953), I have never personally seen a lead pipe. I have seen lead caulking for cast iron sewage pipes.
Or was it a length of pipe, galvanized, steel, or even a steel bar?
Why does lead have to take the hit (no pun)?
Except for the game Clue.
"...Pratt was 45 when he got out, and returned to the Atlantic City neighbourhood where his 64-year-old mother resided, the Press of Atlantic City reported. It was a quiet part of town, the kind of place where kids carved hearts around their initials in wet cement on the sidewalk..."
On the one hand, he’s guilty, both now and before.
On the other hand, if you take a mentally disturbed 15 year old and stick him in a maximum security prison for 30 years, he’s NOT going to come out sane.
Also, there are about 7.4 billion people in the world - think about all the people he didn't kill. When you look at it that way, he's practically as non-violent as Ghandi!
He shouldn’t have come out at all.
You want to show how pot had anything to do with any of this, or are you just drunk again?
I would imagine that this guy was trouble in prison too. To serve almost a full if not the full 30 years sentence he was trouble. Even in the federal system most only serve 85% of their sentence.
Probably not. Institutionalization is a real thing. So is psychological destruction. He was put in prison to be destroyed, and it worked. Letting him out was like releasing a wild animal.
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