A clerical error on the part of the New York City's Police Department has led to a violent sex offender felon being released early after assaulting a 57-year-old female churchgoer. As a result of this, the police now believe that this glaring mistake may have given him the opportunity to murder another innocent woman.
The trouble began when 57-year-old home-health aide Beatrice Kaliku was brutally attacked while making her way to a local prayer meeting. According to her testimony, a young man grabbed her from behind on Bowen Street on Staten Island and pummeled her with his fists. Despite sustaining serious injuries, which she later hospitalized for, Kaliku managed to flee from her attacker and contact the police. They opened a brief investigation into the beating but later dropped the case.
Then on January 18, 69-year-old Johynita Jordan vanished, seemingly without a trace. On Thursday, January 24, Jordan's body was recovered from an abandoned house in Stapleton. Police sources now say that CCTV footage shows 31-year-old Linden Beaton, a registered sex offender and convicted felon, leading her into the house. Beaton can later be seen walking out alone. Police also believe that it is very likely that Beaton is the same man who attacked Kaliku. The error was only discovered after Kaliku’s family contacted police and a local councilwoman to ask why investigators had neglected to take a statement from her following her release from the hospital.
In a recent interview, Beatrice Kaliku stated that the police forces closed her case prematurely. She described a culture of apathy within the department, stating that she had to fight to get investigators to re-open her case. Describing the attack she stated:
"He told me to shut up. I think he wanted to kill me...When he saw I was trying to fight him off, he grabbed my head and threw me against iron gate ... It was horrible. Horrible. He kept persisting. My eye. Beating, beating, it was horrible."
Kaliku’s daughter told news reporters that:
"It took me a lot going back and forth cause like I said they first closed the case out… Once I showed the officer at the precinct this is not something I feel should be swept under the rug this is what happened to my mom she kept in contact with me. Then the following week the detective reached out and we met up and everything has been flowing smoothly with the case.”
Police claim that the officers responsible for the mistake have been disciplined, although their identities have not been made public.
Beaton was taken into custody on January 25, although Police have not yet charged him with murder. It remains to be seen whether Beaton was indeed responsible for the assault of Kaliku and the murder of Jordan. But regardless, his early release raises serious questions about the competence of the NYPD.
