The Federal Bureau of Prison moved the remaining inmates from a Michigan halfway house Tuesday after a man whose drug-related prison sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama was fatally shot there by two men with assault-style rifles who sought him out.
Two men wearing masks went into Bannum Place in Saginaw on Monday night with plans to kill 31-year-old Damarlon Thomas, a former Saginaw gang member. Lt. David Kaiser said Thomas was shot several times by one of the men as some of the roughly two dozen people at the home were held at gunpoint.
"One person watched over a group of them while another subject located the victim and executed him," Kaiser told The Saginaw News. "They were looking for this person."
Thomas was pronounced dead at the scene, WSGW-AM reported. No one else was injured and no one was immediately taken into custody.
The housing of inmates at Bannum Place has been temporarily suspended and all residents have been moved elsewhere, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Jill C. Tyson told MLive.
Thomas had been sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2008 on a cocaine charge, but with the commutation the sentence was to expire in March. He was arrested as part of "Operation Sunset," a federal investigation that effectively dismantled the "Sunny Side Gang" in Saginaw.
Thomas' commutation, which was among a group of 79 announced Nov. 22, was part of Obama's second-term effort to try to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that Obama said had imprisoned thousands of drug offenders for too long.
Tyson said Thomas arrived at Bannum Place on Dec. 13, or about eight years before his initial release date from prison. She declined to comment on the security measures there.
The Bureau of Prisons contracts with Bannum Place to rehabilitate federal inmates nearing release.
