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What You Can Do to Help Keep a Cop Killer Behind Bars
Michael Levine and son, Keith (inset)
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January 03, 2011
Michael Alston may have been known on the streets as Sugar Bear, but he’s a heartless, cold-blooded cop killer who should remain behind bars when the New York State Parole Board meets this week. And YOU can make that happen.
Alston, now 54, worked as an enforcer for drug dealers. A two-time convicted killer, he was out of jail less than a month just days after Christmas 1991 when he and two other thugs beat a man who’d just taken money from an ATM machine on West 57th Street in Manhattan around 2 a.m.
Off-duty NYPD Sgt. Keith Levine saw what was happening and rushed to help. He chased the pack on foot, was shot twice and died.
Alston is serving 15 years to life thanks to a 1993 plea bargain — courtesy of prosecutors who were afraid that an earlier confession from a wrongly arrested suspect could let the real shooter walk. This is his third crack at parole.
“By killing my son, he technically qualified as a serial killer,” said the slain hero’s father, Michael Levine, a retired DEA agent who now teaches police and lectures on undercover tactics and informant handling. “Which means in a sane society I shouldn’t even have to write this.
“I shouldn’t have to tell this or any parole board that if this man is set free while he can pull a trigger that’s what he will do: He will kill again, and again and again,” said Levine, who wrote the best-selling book “Deep Cover.”
“This is what he does, this is what he’s done since childhood,” he said. “This is what he has done every time he’s been set free by parole boards in the past and that, other than death or a cage, there is no cure for this.
“To set a virus like this free is to condemn the children of some other father to death. And that what NYPD Sgt. Keith Richard Levine died trying to prevent.”
So here’s what we need to do: Write the New York State Parole Board.
LETTER TO N.Y. STATE PAROLE BOARD
Don’t forget to include:
RE: Michael Alston
NYSID#0:3 521538N
DIN#: 93A0704
As if it weren’t painful enough, Levine noted that the letter from the Parole Board notifying him of the Jan. 17 hearing is addressed to Michael “Lavigne.”
“I have been part of law enforcement and military bureaucracies long enough to be used to this kind of insensitivity,” said Levine, whose expert testimony in more than 300 cases nationwide have helped put criminals behind bars. “However, given Mr. Alston’s past record of rubber-stamped paroles after multi-felony convictions including two homicides, it certainly does not add to my confidence that anything I say will matter.
“And it’s not just getting my name wrong that is so disturbing. It is forgetting the family name of the 27-year old police officer who died trying to protect the innocent from this parole-licensed killer that is both unforgivable and frightening.”
expert53
6 months ago
2 Comments
To all my brothers and sisters who have ever carried a badge. Thanks to your support this animal was denied parole. He is now up for it again. I am writing this on 11/8/12 and will be talking to the parole board in Albany NY tomorrow. The parole hearing is in December. The following is a synopsis of what I will see. Please pass this on.
God Bless you all.
Mike Levine
Department of Corrections & Community Supervision
The Harriman State Campus – Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 1226-2050 Re: Prisoner, Michael Alston 93A0704
Presentation Before NYS Parole Board 11-9-12
In a very real sense, my whole family was murdered the day that a cancer cell with the human name, Michael Alston, fired a bullet into the heart of my son, NYPD Sgt. Keith Levine— the third time that this creature was caught and convicted of killing someone’s child. As my boy was falling, mortally wounded, his last act was to fire two bullets at his killer from a .38 caliber gun that was his off-duty service revolver. One of the bullets hit the zipper on that malignancy’s jacket and was deflected. Had my son’s bullet been from one of the 9MM guns now being issued to police, the cancer cell would have been destroyed as should happen to all malignancies, and I wouldn’t be saying these words and the world would be a safer and saner place. Instead, a wonderful, loving young man, a police officer, a gifted musician, song writer and actor, a young man with a beautiful soul and dreams who wanted to help and protect people is no more. And the malignancy with the human name Michael Alston lives on to yet kill again, if we allow it.
Now I would like to speak to the parole board more as an expert than the father of Keith Levine. In the past 45 years my expert testimony in the areas of Undercover Survival Tactics and Undercover Narcotics Enforcement has been accepted on more than 300 occasions in federal and state courts throughout the US and Canada and many foreign countries. Knowing and understanding the modus operandi of malignancies such as the one named Michael Alston is critical to that expertise. As an undercover officer I have dealt directly with these malignancies, face-to-face, looking them in the eyes, making undercover deals for everything from drugs to assassinations. To do this any length of time and survive is living the life of a snake charmer. You study them in a way that no social scientist can. Up close and very personal, and in their own natural habitats. It is hard for straight citizens, judges and even parole boards to comprehend creatures that walk around on two legs to which taking a life is more than just a correctable error. Creatures to whom killing is a compulsion, a need. It is for this reason I use the metaphor of a malignancy, a deadly cancer cell. A malignancy has no other purpose than to kill. And other than destroy or isolate it nothing else in the world works to stop it.
In the case of this particular malignancy, he is now convicted of three homicides, including my son’s. To street people, cops and undercover narks, this means he has gotten away with as many as thirty. Three or more murders, according to the FBI constitute a serial killer. This creature is no different than the Ted Bundys, Son of Sams or Jeffrey Dahmers of this world. He doesn’t know his victims other than at the moment of contact, when he fulfills his need. So he kills with untraceable guns and escapes into a subterranean world where he is confident that he won’t be found; and on those few occasions when he is found he counts on a skewed bureaucratic and political system that seems to value human life a lot less than fiscal budgets, to free him to kill again. He kills because that is what he does; that’s what he will always do when allowed to roam free; that’s what he is guaranteed to do. Anyone who sets this creature free, from this day on, KNOW that innocent blood is on your hands.
This is no longer about vengeance. Nothing I say can bring my son back, but what I say, and what the parole board can do, is to carry on my son’s work. Complete what he died for. Protect the innocent from this virulent malignancy called Michael Alston.
Let him die safely in a cage.
Please pass this on.
Department of Corrections & Community Supervision
The Harriman State Campus – Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 1226-2050 Re: Prisoner, Michael Alston 93A0704
Presentation Before NYS Parole Board 11-9-12
In a very real sense, my whole family was murdered the day that a cancer cell with the human name, Michael Alston, fired a bullet into the heart of my son, NYPD Sgt. Keith Levine— the third time that this creature was caught and convicted of killing someone’s child. As my boy was falling, mortally wounded, his last act was to fire two bullets at his killer from a .38 caliber gun that was his off-duty service revolver. One of the bullets hit the zipper on that malignancy’s jacket and was deflected. Had my son’s bullet been from one of the 9MM guns now being issued to police, the cancer cell would have been destroyed as should happen to all malignancies, and I wouldn’t be saying these words and the world would be a safer and saner place. Instead, a wonderful, loving young man, a police officer, a gifted musician, song writer and actor, a young man with a beautiful soul and dreams who wanted to help and protect people is no more. And the malignancy with the human name Michael Alston lives on to yet kill again, if we allow it.
Now I would like to speak to the parole board more as an expert than the father of Keith Levine. In the past 45 years my expert testimony in the areas of Undercover Survival Tactics and Undercover Narcotics Enforcement has been accepted on more than 300 occasions in federal and state courts throughout the US and Canada and many foreign countries. Knowing and understanding the modus operandi of malignancies such as the one named Michael Alston is critical to that expertise. As an undercover officer I have dealt directly with these malignancies, face-to-face, looking them in the eyes, making undercover deals for everything from drugs to assassinations. To do this any length of time and survive is living the life of a snake charmer. You study them in a way that no social scientist can. Up close and very personal, and in their own natural habitats. It is hard for straight citizens, judges and even parole boards to comprehend creatures that walk around on two legs to which taking a life is more than just a correctable error. Creatures to whom killing is a compulsion, a need. It is for this reason I use the metaphor of a malignancy, a deadly cancer cell. A malignancy has no other purpose than to kill. And other than destroy or isolate it nothing else in the world works to stop it.
In the case of this particular malignancy, he is now convicted of three homicides, including my son’s. To street people, cops and undercover narks, this means he has gotten away with as many as thirty. Three or more murders, according to the FBI constitute a serial killer. This creature is no different than the Ted Bundys, Son of Sams or Jeffrey Dahmers of this world. He doesn’t know his victims other than at the moment of contact, when he fulfills his need. So he kills with untraceable guns and escapes into a subterranean world where he is confident that he won’t be found; and on those few occasions when he is found he counts on a skewed bureaucratic and political system that seems to value human life a lot less than fiscal budgets, to free him to kill again. He kills because that is what he does; that’s what he will always do when allowed to roam free; that’s what he is guaranteed to do. Anyone who sets this creature free, from this day on, KNOW that innocent blood is on your hands.
This is no longer about vengeance. Nothing I say can bring my son back, but what I say, and what the parole board can do, is to carry on my son’s work. Complete what he died for. Protect the innocent from this virulent malignancy called Michael Alston.
Let him die safely in a cage.
Please pass this on.
tremor2
over 2 years ago
430 Comments
I sent my letter in...hope a lot of others do the same!
revCCBeasley
over 2 years ago
2944 Comments
Everthing you can under the LAW...
armadillo87
over 2 years ago
10 Comments
whats din under the zip
armadillo87
over 2 years ago
10 Comments
bump t1401hm
celticolleen
over 2 years ago
16 Comments
Error occured while processing your request
Report the following Board of Parole Message to 518-473-9400 : null or Invalid input
--Maybe they just don't want to hear from us Californians!
meriwether1983
over 2 years ago
78 Comments
letter sent.
Drill_Sergeant
over 2 years ago
142 Comments
Done.
adam_crouse
over 2 years ago
2 Comments
Letter sent.
jhunph
over 2 years ago
1120 Comments
celticolleen keep trying, Im not in NY right now but I was able to submit my petition.
celticolleen
over 2 years ago
16 Comments
I tried but keep getting an error. Is it because I'm from CA?
whitew
over 2 years ago
180 Comments
Letter sent. Stay inside where you belong.
Lawequipeng
over 2 years ago
10 Comments
If the parole board has learnt anything from history this individual must never be granted parole.
Letter sent
t1401hm
over 2 years ago
1754 Comments
Bump Dep1870
Dep1870
over 2 years ago
188 Comments
Those proven to be Cop Killers should be fried. No questions asked!