July 6, 2006
Arrested by: Alpharetta Police Department
Charges: concealed weapon; felony shoplifting
Disposition: Pre-trial intervention
April 22, 2010
Arrested by: Atlanta Police Department
Charges: Drug possession; terroristic threats
Disposition: Four months suspended
July 27, 2011
Arrested by: Cobb Police Department
Charges: Felon in possession of a firearm; discharging a firearm
Disposition: Four months in boot camp; five years probation
Despite at least 19 arrests over his 28 years, Ismaaiyl Brinsley — who had a warrant for his arrest in Georgia when he gunned down two New York City police officers over the weekend — was just the type of criminal who falls through the cracks.
Until Saturday, which began with Brinsley shooting his former girlfriend in Baltimore, he threatened violence but rarely resorted to it. His most serious conviction was for shooting up a car.
Other arrests were for attempting to steal a Gucci belt, dancing in the street and threatening to slap a Waffle House waitress. In 2010 he told a Georgia State student he was going to kill her, but instead threw a Slushy in her face.
This history of mostly misdemeanor arrests allowed the Brooklyn native to avoid prison and essentially ignore the conditions of his probation with little consequence. He was cited for two probation violations over a span of six months in 2013, the last of which led to the outstanding warrant for his arrest.
Overall, his offenses were minor compared to the murderers, rapists and other violent felons who pass through the court system, said Cobb Deputy District Attorney John Melvin.
“There’s nothing in his background to suggest that he’s anything other than just kind of a low-level thief with a personality disorder and who doesn’t really like authority,” Melvin said. “There’s nothing in there that says he’ll commit something so heinous as he has right now.”
On Aug. 1, 2011, Brinsley pleaded guilty in Cobb County Superior Court to five charges: Obstruction of an officer; discharge of a gun near a public street; criminal damage to property; possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; and theft by receiving involving a firearm. He had shot up a car after a woman refused to let him into her apartment.
He faced a possible 20 years in prison and fines of $302,000 in the Cobb case, but was instead sentenced to attend a Department of Corrections boot camp for four months. Upon completion of the program, Brinsley would be allowed to skip prison and spend five years on probation, in what Judge Joan Vaughan Bloom called “intense supervision,” according to a transcript of the proceedings.
“That’s in line with what you’d normally see, considering the charges,” said former Cobb County prosecutor Philip Holloway, now a defense lawyer.
Brinsey completed the program in three months and was back on the street, where the supervision was hardly intense. Meanwhile, Brinsley’s lifelong mental health issues — which included a suicide attempt as a teen — went untreated.
“The criminal justice system is extremely ill-equipped to deal with people with psychiatric issues,” Holloway said.
He may have been a convicted felon with known mental issues, but his charge was shoplifting. The probation violations were techinical, Melvin said, the kind that happen “literally thousands of times every year across the state of Georgia.”
In 2013, he failed to report to his probation officer and or submit proof that he received required evaluation and treatment for alcohol and drug abuse or anger and violence issues. He didn’t pay a $975 fine, either.
Brinsley would serve 30 days in jail for that infraction, but he may have avoided accountability if not for his arrest in June of that year by Atlanta police, who discovered the outstanding warrant.
Six months later, Brinsley violated his probation again for an unpaid $1,100 court-ordered fine and failure to complete an anger and violence evaluation. A judge signed off on a warrant for his arrest one year ago today.
Brinsley had alienated family members, including a sister in Union City who said she last saw him two years ago. His mother told police she feared him.
It’s unclear how he supported himself in the year since or even where he lived. His last known address was an apartment complex in Union City but at some point he had relocated to Maryland, where his former girlfriend lived. She’s expected to survive after being shot in the stomach by Brinsley.
As he bounced from jail cell to courtroom his mental struggles were exacerabted. His mother, Shakwura Dabre, told the New York Daily News her son had once been institutionalized — as he acknowledged before his sentencing in Cobb County — and tried to kill himself when he was 13. Brinsley refused the family’s repeated attempts to get him help, his mother said.
Sending him to a boot camp didn’t help matters, said criminologist Francis T. Cullen, a professor at the University of Cincinnati.
“The bottom line is people get victimized and offenders don’t get the right treatment,” said Cullen, who said such camps were discretied years ago. “Very few criminologists would say that if you have an offender of any risk, that would be an option to choose.”
“Why give offenders a treatment that research says doesn’t work?” he said.
Holloway said the boot camps are rarely utilized in sentencing anymore and were reserved for younger criminals “who don’t necessarily need to go into the prison system but require some incarceration.”
“He would’ve been very unlikely to receive any mental health treatment in a boot camp,” he said.
Over the last year Brinsley’s mental state appeared to deterioate, and he resorted to more threats on social media. This time, he directed them at law enforcement.
On Saturday, he made good on them.
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