Recently Released Convict Who Famously Advocated for Criminal Justice Reform Charged with Gruesome Murder
It’s nigh impossible to change the stripes of a tiger that has lived in the jungle its whole life — even when the tiger is captured and trained for the circus.
A high-profile advocate of criminal justice reform was arrested Thursday after police found a dismembered body inside a New York apartment, according to The New York Times.
Welcome to the circus of criminal reform advocacy. This circus uses real tigers.
Sheldon Johnson, 48, was charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon, according to WABC-TV.
Early Tuesday morning, authorities were called to an apartment in the Bronx for a wellness check. The building superintendent, Orlando Medina, said a tenant called him around 1 a.m.
“Someone was pleading for their life,” Medina said, according to WABC. “She said she heard two gunshots, someone said, ‘Please don’t kill me, I got family,’ something like that, and two more gunshots pretty quickly.”
Authorities located a human torso and arms inside the apartment.
After obtaining a search warrant for Johnson’s Harlem apartment on Wednesday, detectives said they found the legs and head of the victim — identified as 44-year-old Collin Small — in a freezer.
He had been shot once in the head.
The suspect’s car was searched and investigators discovered a Tyvek suit, according to WABC.
Johnson is innocent until proved guilty, but the evidence up, as described by police, is damning, to say the least.
The irony lies in the fact that he is a criminal reform advocate who appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast last month.
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
Speaking of his past in the jungle of gang life and how he had turned it around, Johnson told Rogan, “It was at that moment that I really said I have to change my life. I have to change my life. I just can’t do this. I had a wife, I had family still, my son was growing up — he was hearing stories of my so-called notoriety. And I just didn’t want to be that dad.”
He spoke about his life behind bars, saying, “Prison does two things to you. It brings out the best or it brings out the worst.”
When Johnson was released from prison last year after serving a 25-year stint for attempted murder, he chose to walk away from the jungle, he told Rogan.
He went to work as a criminal justice reform advocate for Queens Defenders in the Bronx.
You can take a tiger out of the jungle, but the jungle stays in the heart of the tiger.
Was Johnson able to change his stripes? Certainly not if he is guilty of the crimes with which he has been charged.
When he was arraigned on Thursday night, Johnson’s supporters filled the courtroom, according to WABC. One of them wore a jacket that read “Specializing in wrongful conviction arrests.” Oh, the irony.
Beware ex-cons advocating for criminal justice reform — they usually are soft on crime.
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