EDMONTON — Police killer Albert Foulston had a needle full of drugs in his arm less than 24 hours after he was released from prison in early 2005.
His parole was revoked, but Foulston is again eligible for statutory release this month and police are raising the alarm, saying public safety may be at risk.
“I lead the members of the Edmonton Police Service and I’m very, very concerned about them,” Chief Mike Boyd told reporters Wednesday.
“I talked to a number of people and certainly heard discussion in the community about this particular case.”
Foulston has been serving a 20-year sentence for the 1990 slaying of Const. Ezio Faraone.
Boyd has written a letter to National Parole Board chairman Harvey Cenaiko, formerly a police inspector in Calgary who became Alberta’s solicitor general at one point. He wants Cenaiko to intervene in Foulston’s case and either delay or cancel his release.
“It’s around public safety,” said Boyd. “I felt that I could bring forward a perspective that might be reviewed and might bring about a change in the decision.”
Cenaiko’s office in Ottawa refused comment.
But Darren Caul, a parole board spokesman in Edmonton, said there’s no way to stop Foulston from being set free under provisions for statutory release, although there are several conditions attached to his parole.
“The law is very clear, the only legal authority the National Parole Board has in this case is to impose special conditions and the board has exercised this legal authority to the fullest,” said Caul.
Wil Tonowski, a retired Edmonton detective, said steps should have been taken by corrections officials years ago to ensure Foulston served his entire 20-year sentence.
Foulston has done nothing to rehabilitate himself and needs to be monitored closely given that he showed clearly during his brief release in 2005 that he’s still a drug addict, Tonowski said in an interview.
“He just made it clear that he isn’t going to even attempt to stop. He’s just saying, ‘I’m going to do it, whether you like it or not,”’ he said.
“He doesn’t appreciate the fact that the drugs are the biggest part of his crime cycle. This is why he was robbing banks in the first place, to get money to buy drugs.”
Foulston and accomplice Jerry Crews were being sought by police in 1990 after robbing an Edmonton bank. The pair encountered the young police constable in an alley and Foulston held up his hands, as if he was prepared to surrender.
Crews then stepped out and killed the young officer with a blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Crews was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole until 2016.
Foulston is a habitual criminal, with dozens of convictions and a total of 30 years of jail time since his teens. He also has a poor record in prison with a long list of violations that kept him in segregation for much of his time behind bars.
Foulston was also on parole when Const. Faraone was killed. He’ll be sent to a halfway house in Edmonton when he’s released after the parole board rejected his bid to live with his common law partner.
But Tonowski said sending Foulston back to Edmonton is a serious mistake and he would be better off getting a fresh start in a new location.