Inmate Commuted by President Obama 'Executed' at Halfway House

A former member of a Michigan gang whose prison sentence was commuted by President Obama in November was killed in an execution-style shooting at a federal halfway house last month, according to media reports. Demarlon C. Thomas, 31, was shot by one of two masked gunmen with assault weapons who entered Bannum Place, a federal halfway house in Saginaw on Jan. 23, police said.

Michigan State Police said one of the men shot Thomas in the head and several other times while the other man held the 23 other men at the house at gunpoint. There were no other injuries, police said.

It’s unclear how long Thomas had been at the halfway house after his release from Elkton Federal Correctional Institute in Lisbon, Ohio, where he was serving a 19-year sentence in connection with one of Saginaw’s largest drug busts in history. With the commutation, his sentence would have expired in March.

Michigan State Police Lt. David Kaiser told MLive.com the suspects remain at large.

The other men at the halfway house were moved following the execution to an undisclosed location by Federal Bureau of Prison, the Detroit Free Press reported.

A lifelong friend of Edwards, a football star who attended college on an athletic scholarship, told the newspaper that he was trying to turn his life around, find a job and “take care of his mother.”

“He was his mom’s only child,” Carla Robinson told MLive. “Since he’s been home, all he’s been trying to do is do right. He’s been trying to find a job. He wasn’t a troublemaker.”

Thomas had been a member of the Sunny Side Gang and was one of 29 people convicted of drug charges after federal investigation known as “Operation Sundown” dismantled the gang.

Photo via Whitehouse.gov