Michigan Man Whose Drug Sentence Commuted By Obama Is Shot Dead

SAGINAW (WWJ/AP) – A man whose drug-related prison sentence was commuted in November by President Barack Obama has been fatally shot at a federal halfway house in Michigan after two men with assault-style rifles sought him out, police said.

Two men wearing masks went into Bannum Place in Saginaw on Monday night with plans to kill 31-year-old Damarlon Thomas, a former Saginaw gang member. Lt. David Kaiser said Thomas was shot several times by one of the men as some of the roughly two dozen people at the home were held at gunpoint.

“One person watched over a group of them while another subject located the victim and executed him,” Kaiser told The Saginaw News. “They were looking for this person.”

Or as they say, “This was not a random shooting.” I guess it’s fortunate that the two gunmen didn’t decide that it would be better if there were no witnesses to talk to the police. On the other hand, that might have caused whoever wanted Mr. Thomas dead more problems since I’d have to guess that none of the other inhabitants of the halfway house were choir boys.

I’m also trying to figure out exactly what an “assault style” rifle is. In this case, there wasn’t much style, but there certainly was a lot of assaulting going on.

Not that I expect the media to actually get a gun related fact right. Or most other facts for that matter.

Thomas’ commutation, which was among a group of 79 announced Nov. 22, was part of Obama’s second-term effort to try to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that Obama said had imprisoned thousands of drug offenders for too long.

As I noted in the post title. He’d have been safer in prison.

Remember, it’s only help if it helps. In this case, it helped Mr. Thomas’s murderers, but not Mr. Thomas.

The law of unintended consequences, I guess.