A plea agreement for a man who entered a Tucson charter school armed with a knife and gun and made threats has led to a rift between prosecutors and police.
Daniel Hollander, 31, accepted a plea agreement to serve 18 months in prison followed by 10 years of probation after admitting to interfering with an educational institution, making a terrorist threat and burglary.
The sentence Hollander faces has drawn criticism from police, the state schools superintendent and the public.
“When someone in crisis goes into one of our elementary schools with violent intent to harm children, they should be held criminally accountable for a significant amount of time, in conjunction with court-ordered treatment,†TPD Chief Chad Kasmar said in a statement.
“Thankfully a quick-thinking, well-trained school staff and fast acting, courageous police officer safely resolved what could have been another school shooting.â€
People are also reading…
On Jan. 16, Hollander entered the gymnasium at Legacy Traditional School — East Tucson while students and staff were gathered. He was carrying a knife and gun when he was detained, Tucson police said. Hollander told an officer he “had not slept in five daysâ€, that he used meth and that “an invisible woman was telling him what to do.†He went on to say he wanted to “hurt the kids†by doing a mass shooting, police have said.
A second gun, ballistic vests, ammunition, cell phones and a computer were found in a search of Hollander’s home, police said.
State Schools Chief Tom Horne said the circumstances of the case show Hollander deserves more punishment than an 18-month sentence.
State Attorney Laura Conover initially asked for a 12-month sentence, with a judge raising that sentence to 18 months.
As far as the 10-year probation? Horne said probation isn’t perfect.
“As a former Attorney General, I know that the public is entitled to be protected from people like this defendant . . . if this individual has a bad day, he could go into a school and kill students. In my opinion, the prosecutor’s recommendation should have been at least 20 years in prison to protect our children,†he said.
“In this case, we avoided that tragedy by the skin of our teeth.â€
Tucson police issued a statement stating that they, too, are disappointed, citing a lack of communication from Conover’s office and “lenient plea agreement offered to Mr. Hollander.â€.
Conover said that her office had meetings with the investigating officers and received input from the department before the plea was offered.
“Together, TPD and PCAO overcame the evidence problems and secured a guilty plea as high as 19.5 years in prison available,†she said. “The plea also created a safety plan going forward with intensive probation and surveillance and future prison time if violations occur. This is collaboration between TPD and PCAO at its best.â€
The riff is the second recent occasion for a riff between Conover’s office and local law enforcement.
The Pima County Attorney’s Office has sued the federal government to gain access to a man implicated in a deadly Tucson crime spree.
Conover and federal prosecutors have been engaged in a public back-and-forth over what agency will handle the case against Julio Cesar Aguirre, a 42-year-old migrant who was previously deported to Mexico after an ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ prison term.
The feds took Aguirre into custody from a Tucson hospital, and Conover has said she worries he will be deported again before facing a criminal trial by her office in the shooting death of a 70-year-old man during a carjacking attempt and crime spree in midtown June 30.
The lawsuit seeks access to Aguirre for local prosecutors.
Timothy Courchaine, the U.S. attorney for ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥, said in a previous news release that Aguirre committed crimes under federal jurisdiction, “starting with illegal immigration, escalating to prohibited possession of a firearm, and culminating in the death of an innocent individual,†which is “why the United States Attorney’s Office takes this matter so seriously.â€
That case remains ongoing.
