Early release sought by D.C. cop killer angers police union

The D.C. Police Union is opposing the potential release of a man who ambushed and killed Metropolitan Police Officer Brian T. Gibson in 1997, as the murderer seeks sentencing relief under a law intended to help formerly young convicts get out of prison early.

The union voiced its disapproval after lawyers for Marthell Dean moved last week to have his life sentence without the possibility of parole reduced under the District’s Second Look Amendment Act. 

The law allows people who committed a crime before they turned 25 to petition for their release after spending at least 15 years behind bars. The labor group criticized D.C. Council member Charles Allen, Ward 6 Democrat, for helping draft the law that has been on the books for nearly a decade.

“While Allen loves to release violent criminals back onto the streets, the Union firmly believes that Dean must remain incarcerated for life,” the police union said in a statement.

Dean, then 23, walked up to Gibson’s marked police cruiser on Feb. 5, 1997, and shot the officer unprovoked after being kicked out of the IBEX nightclub in Northwest Washington.

Court documents said Dean fired one shot into Gibson’s shoulder, then three more into his head. 

Gibson was a husband and father of two young daughters, as well as a Marine veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm. He was 27 when he was fatally shot.

Police arrested Dean moments later, and he was convicted of murder in 1998. A judge handed down two consecutive life sentences to the cop killer.

Dean, now 52, is being held at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, a high-security federal prison. 

The union said Gibson’s mother, Shirley, turned her grief into action as she hosted cookouts, golf tournaments and Thanksgiving dinners for Metropolitan Police officers in the nearly 30 years since her son was killed.

Shirley Gibson went on to become the national president of Concerns of Police Survivors, or COPS, an organization that helps families of slain police officers. The group holds candlelight vigils each year in the nation’s capital for cops killed in the line of duty.  

Gibson’s sister, Terrica, told WRC-TV that her mother died in recent years, but news of Dean seeking an early release would have “devastated” her.

“I’m really alone. That family of four that was so perfect is now gone, and it’s just me, but I will fight because it’s me and I will take care of him,” Ms. Gibson said. “He has a grandson and a granddaughter that he will never see and they never got to know him.”

Gregg Pemberton, the head of the D.C. Police Union, said the family had been a “lifeline for our department.”

“Brian Gibson died protecting our city. Justice demands Dean stays in prison. We stand with the Gibsons and urge the court to deny motion and keep this murdering assassin behind bars,” he said.

The D.C. Police Union asked people to speak out against Dean’s potential release by submitting impact statements to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia. Prosecutors will be accepting the impact statements until Monday.

The Washington Times has reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment on Dean’s petition.