Cops Previously Issued Two Arrest Warrants For Man Who Murdered Pregnant Woman, But D.A. Twice Declined To Prosecute

Killer Got Two Passes From Progressive Larry

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

In the two weeks before Razique Bumpas killed a 39-year-old pregnant woman, police issued two arrest warrants for Bumpas that could have prevented the murders.

The two warrants, issued Feb. 8th, and Feb. 15th, were for making terroristic threats, after Bumpas allegedly drove up in traffic alongside a car that the mother of his girlfriend was riding in and pulled a gun on her.

But, sources say, the district attorney's office twice declined to prosecute that case, and instead kept asking for more information. The D.A. wanted the accused's phone number as well as GPS numbers that would have placed the accused at the scene of the crime. Tragically, while the D.A.'s office was demanding more information, Bumpas went out and murdered another woman, as well as her unborn child, and he also critically shot and wounded another man.

In response, John Hoyt, a veteran police captain and former detective who is the recording secretary for Philadelphia Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, said that for allegations of domestic abuse, there isn't the same threshold for evidence required to bring a case to court because of changes in the law that are designed to protect victims.

"I don't know what the D.A.'s office was thinking in requiring so much information for an arrest," Hoyt said. "We're disappointed that yet again this district attorney's office is ignoring systems and processes put in place to protect victims of crime in Philadelphia, specifically victims of domestic abuse. And yet here we are again with a preventable tragedy."

As is their usual practice, D.A. Krasner and his spokesperson, Jane Roh, did not respond to a request for comment. So much for Krasner's claims when he took office of being a reformer who was supposedly going to head an open and transparent administration. Whenever I ask for information, all Krasner and Roh ever do is stonewall.

And they're getting away with it because The Philadelphia Inquirer is ignoring the corruption in the D.A.'s office, and the disastrous consequences Krasner's radical policies are having on the rest of us.

The murder of the pregnant woman occurred Feb. 21st at 9th and Dauphin Streets. Police say that two or three suspects were firing shots at a minivan occupied by a 40-year-old man and Ishan Charmidah Rahman, 39.

Rahman, shot once in the chest, was driven to the hospital by the 40-year-old man who had been shot in the chest and shoulder. She died at the hospital. Doctors tried to save the baby through an emergency C-section, but the baby was also pronounced dead. 

Bumpas, 21, of Juanita Park, was charged  with two counts of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, possession of an instrument of crime, and violations of the firearms act. He is being held without bail pending a March 11th preliminary hearing.

As often happens in domestic abuse cases, the police ran into problems after they issued the two arrest warrants against Bumpas for threatening his girlfriend's mother. Sources say the girlfriend made up with her boyfriend and "went south" by refusing to supply the cops with texts that Bumpas had sent her, texts that threatened to kill her mother. Also, the girlfriend's mother at first was willing to testify against Bumpas, for pulling up in traffic alongside her and brandishing a gun, but then she didn't call the cops back.

Sources say Bumpas originally was angry with his girlfriend because she wouldn't answer his phone calls. So he texted the girlfriend as he was driving in traffic, threatening that he was going to pull up to her mother's car, which he was following, and kill her. He wound up pulling the gun on the mother, and threatening her.

In cop parlance, it was a couple of "jobs" that should have immediately been prosecuted by the D.A.'s office, with the D.A.'s office acting as the complainant for any witness who wasn't willing to come forward and testify against Bumpas.

A source familiar with the Bumpas case said that the D.A.'s requests for more information were unnecessary.

"You don't need his phone," the source said about the accused criminal. "More ridiculous bullshit . . . But with this D.A.'s office, no amount of evidence is enough."

To make an arrest, Hoyt explained, a detective has to submit an affidavit of probable cause to the district attorney's charging unit, known as DACU. Then, if the D.A. takes the case, the detective needs to have an arrest warrant signed by a judge or bail commissioner.

If there's evidence of domestic violence, "That's enough to get an arrest warrant," Hoyt said. And then the cops "let it play out in court."

But "That's the problem," Hoyt said. "We're not getting even getting to that point," because every month, this D.A. declines so many cases for prosecution, in forms the office issues known as declinations, as in declining to prosecute.

Had the D.A. taken the earlier case against Bumpas, the victim "wouldn't have been murdered," Hoyt said. "That's exactly what the evolving laws on domestic abuse are designed to prevent."

"The officers and detectives clearly did their part," Hoyt said. "It's very frustrating to put the time and effort and personal risk in to get these guys into custody and then see them walk out the back door a day later."

Or get a pass from the D.A.'s office, when it refuses to prosecute another accused criminal, because it cares more about the rights of criminals rather than the citizens they've sworn to protect.

Cops have given up a lot of "blood, sweat and tears" to bring down the murder rate in recent years and cut down on violent crime, Hoyt said. "To see all of that being undone by what's going on now is disheartening."

There's another problem with the Bumpas case -- disappearing records. Since the double murder, sources say, the two previously issued affidavits of probable cause, as well as the D.A.'s two declinations where they declined to prosecute, have mysteriously disappeared from the computer system known as PARS, or Preliminary Arraignment System.

Hoyt was upset to hear that.

"That does not sound normal from my experience," he said.

Can you say cover up? The D.A.'s office has a recent history of wiping out criminal records. Such as 27 new burglary cases and 184 charges that were dropped against a career burglar. And drug charges filed against a pharmacist caught with $30,000 of Xanax.

In both cases, the criminal records of the accused were scrubbed clean. 

For a young guy, Bumpas has quite a rap sheet. He was arrested as recently as Feb. 18th and charged with simple assault for beating up his girlfriend. He was also charged in that same incident with recklessly endangering another person, false imprisonment and strangulation. But he got out on bail after posting $3,000.

Bumpas also has five priors in New Jersey, for a 2018 assault in Berlin Township; a 2016 arrest for rioting and disorderly conduct in Willingboro; a 2015 arrest for allegedly making terroristic threats in Cherry Hill Township; a 2015 arrest for robbery in Cherry Hill Township; and finally, a 2014 arrest in Cherry Hill for sexual assault.