Montgomery County park slaying prompts review of suspect’s parole
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Version 0 of 1. The two young men arrested in connection with an Oct. 8 slaying in a Montgomery County park have lengthy arrest records. One of the men was on parole at the time of the killing. The other received what a Montgomery judge called “an extremely light” sentence in 2011 after being accused of choking a man, robbing him and trying to toss him off a second-floor balcony. It is impossible to say whether the suspects, Earl Bennette, 24, and Shante Gladden, 22, should both have been behind bars on Oct. 8. Cases against them included an important witness backing out and challenges in knowing exactly what happened when crimes occurred. But in Bennette’s past, key moments when he could have been sent back to state prison came and went. While on parole last year, Bennette had run-ins with the law that Maryland’s Division of Parole and Probation knew about, according to court records and state officials. But even after he was convicted of three crimes this year, parole agents waited nearly eight months before moving to issue a “parole retake warrant,” which could have resulted in his being sent to state prison well into 2016. During those eight months, parole authorities missed a golden chance to find Bennette, because he was sitting in the Montgomery County jail. Bennette was released from the jail in August, three days before a warrant was finally issued, according to court and parole records. How that happened is under review as officials trace what occurred and what did not. “We are reviewing this entire case,” said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Division of Parole and Probation. Garrett McClees, 22, of Silver Spring was gunned down in Edgewood Neighborhood Park about 4:40 in the afternoon on Oct. 8. “I don’t understand how — with the records such as these two individuals had — that they were allowed to walk around amongst the public,” said Alicia Arnold, McClees’s mother. Authorities contend that Bennette contacted McClees on Oct. 8 with the ruse that he and Gladden wanted to buy marijuana. Instead, they stole marijuana from McClees and Gladden shot him in the torso, according to authorities. Bennette and Gladden, who both have had addresses in Montgomery County, have been charged with first-degree murder and robbery. Gladden made his first court appearance in the case Wednesday and was ordered held without bond. Bennette was ordered held on no-bond status earlier. Arnold said she does not think her son was dealing marijuana — she said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Family members and friends describe him as an eclectic young man who made friends with people from every background, shopped at thrift stores, read a lot and changed his hair on a whim — from dreadlocks to blond to completely shaven. More than 500 people came to his funeral. “He was very special to a lot of people,” his mother said. [Candy-box clue helps detectives make arrests in park murder] Bennette’s adult arrest record goes back to March 2009, when as an 18-year-old he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft. He was subsequently convicted on relatively minor charges, including disorderly conduct and drug possession counts. In 2010 and 2011, Bennette was charged with breaking into several homes. As part of a later plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree burglary. Montgomery County Circuit Judge John Debelius sentenced Bennette to two years in state prison, which was to be added to time Bennette still owed on earlier cases. The sentence also carried “backup time,” meaning that if he were paroled, he would be under parole supervision well into 2016. He was indeed paroled on April 16, 2013, and Bennette got back into trouble — picking up charges of drug possession, burglary and theft. With a plea deal between his attorney and prosecutors, and credits that a sentencing judge gave him for time he already had been locked up, Bennette was going to stay at the county jail until August 2015. In court, Montgomery Circuit Judge Gary Bair told Bennette that he was going easy on him in hopes that he would turn his life around. He asked Bennette whether he was going to commit crimes and come back before him. “No, sir,” Bennette said. Bair referred to a prosecutor in the cases, Danielle Sartwell, and told Bennette, “If you’re back here, you’re back here. I’ll remember, and I’m sure Ms. Sartwell, or whoever is in her place, will remind me: ‘Look, you gave the guy a major break the last time, and he still committed another crime. So when are you going to get tired of his excuses?’ ” The months in the jail set up a perfect chance for parole officials to start the process for holding a hearing to decide whether Bennette should be sent off to state prison upon his release from the county. Bennette was no longer merely accused; he had pleaded guilty in his new cases. And he was in an easy place to find. But for months, state parole officials did not issue a warrant, according to court records and state officials. On Aug. 1, Bennette walked out of the county jail. On Aug. 4, the state warrant was finally issued, according to state parole records. By then, Bennette was much harder to find and was just one of many parolees the state wanted to pick up. And that list included higher-target convicts who had committed more-violent offenses. “Not everybody who is wanted can possibly be found right away,” said Vernarelli, the parole spokesman. “Often, multiple efforts are made before an offender is located.” As for Gladden, Montgomery County detectives in November 2010 charged him as an adult on counts that included attempted murder, assault and robbery. Gladden was 17 at the time. They alleged that Gladden, along with a 14-year-old and a third suspect, attacked a man who had just parked his car outside an apartment building in the county’s Briggs Chaney area. The trio punched and choked the victim, police said, and the confrontation continued into a stairwell. There, the suspects again attacked and tried to throw the victim off a balcony 15 to 20 feet above concrete. A bystander who intervened was beaten and kicked before yelling out “I’m going to call the police,” which prompted the assailants to flee, according to police allegations. Gladden’s attorney and prosecutors reached an agreement for Gladden to plead guilty to first-degree assault, robbery and resisting arrest as part of a deal that required the judge to impose a sentence of no more than 18 months. “The sentence you’re getting, based on the facts in this case,” Circuit Judge Joseph A. Dugan would later tell Gladden, “is an extremely light one.” Prosecutors who worked the case earlier fought to keep the case in adult court and seemed to want a longer sentence. They indicated to Dugan that they’d had trouble piecing together exactly what happened and what role each of the suspects played. “The front-line prosecutors in the matter believed that some jail time was better than a possible complete acquittal” at trial, said Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for county prosecutors. In 2013, after he had served his sentence, police charged Gladden with two counts of first-degree assault for allegedly pointing a gun at a couple. But prosecutors explained in court that they had “essentially hit a roadblock with the complaining witness, who does not want to cooperate in these proceedings.” The case against Gladden was dropped. |