Mass. parolee guns down cop during botched robbery

Profile of the ringleader and gunman:

Cinelli was the son of late Boston police officer Arthur Cinelli, whose other son, also named Arthur, shot and wounded Medford Detective Sgt. Richard McGlynn in a 1981 robbery, according to news reports. Dominic Cinelli's parole records show a checkered past: a rehabilitated junkie who started shooting heroin at 14, he was a career criminal who at one point was serving three concurrent life sentences for several armed robberies, armed assault with intent to commit murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and unlawful possession of a firearm.

But an appeals court decision made him eligible for parole and he walked in February 2009. The Parole Board at that time noted: "Cinelli's release to community supervision at this time is not incompatible with the welfare of society."

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"It was like the Wild West" accordinng to the local police chief. Then again, in the Wild West, Mr. Cinelli would never have seen the other end of consecutive life sentences to begin with ...