Help keep killer Patrick Bannon, DIN #94A0386, in prison for life for the 1992 murder of NYC Housing Authority P.O. Paul Heidelberger. Please help us oppose parole by sending a letter to Ms. Mary Robles, Supervising Offender Rehabilitation Coordinator, Eastern Correctional Facility, 30 Institution Road, Napanoch, NY 12458 (email [email protected]). We have included a sample letter below.
Ms. Mary Robles
Supervising Offender Rehabilitation Coordinator
Eastern Correctional Facility
30 Institution Road
Napanoch, NY 12458
RE: Patrick Bannon, DIN #94A0386
Dear Ms. Robles and Members of the NYS Parole Board:
I urge you to deny parole to New York State prisoner Patrick Bannon who has been serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for the merciless and senseless killing of off-duty New York Housing Authority Police Officer Paul Heidelberger. Bannon is also serving a manslaughter sentence for killing another man, John Camarta, and seriously wounding yet a third.
On July 18, 1992, on a busy street in Queens, New York, a fight erupted between patrons of a bar called the Palm Club in the confines of the 111th Precinct.
Off-duty Police Officer Paul Heidelberger, who, with a friend, had just left a different restaurant in the vicinity, witnessed the dispute, took police action, and intervened. He began walking some of the bar patrons away from the fray and to their cars nearby when a dark Lincoln Town Car with two men inside pulled up. A man leaped out of the car and fired a 9mm pistol into the crowd. When Officer Heidelberger fell to the sidewalk with a bullet in the neck, witnesses later told police the shooter walked to the Officer, lifted his head, and, point blank, fired a bullet into him, executing him at close range. He did the same to the Officer’s friend, John Camarta, who had been shot in the chest. Heidelberger died at the scene, and Camarta died a short time later at the hospital. A third bystander was seriously wounded in the shoulder.
When the shooter was later found and identified as 26-year-old Patrick Bannon, Bannon lied about the incident, and tried to claim “self-defense,” a completely bogus charge according to those present. The 240-pound Bannon was an angry, disaffected thug who returned to the scene of his own bar fight with a firearm and then shot total strangers. After critically wounding them, he executed them at close range.
The difference between the perpetrator and his victims couldn’t be more pronounced. P.O. Heidelberger was a devoted public servant who friends and family say, “always dreamt of being a Police Officer.” Born and raised in Queens Village, he was the youngest of seven children and a member of a local theatre group. He was on the Housing Police force for six years, and had already been awarded three medals for “Excellent Police Duty,” including one for an incident where he was responding to a burglary in 1991, and was shot in the leg.
His killer is now seeking parole. There will never be any parole from the pain and suffering endured by Officer Heidelberger’s family, friends, and police and theatre colleagues. I respectfully request that the New York State Division of Parole deny the parole petition of Patrick Bannon.
Thank you. I am,
Cordially yours,
