Mass. Police Chief Blasts Decision to Release Convicted Killer of Officer in 1981

A man convicted of killing a Holliston police officer in 1981 was released from prison on Wednesday, prompting a harsh rebuke from the town’s police chief, who called the man’s release “unrighteous.”

Rolando Jimenez, now 64, shot and killed Holliston police officer John Johnson, then 31, on Aug. 13, 1981. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole following a jury trial in Middlesex Superior Court in 1982, where he was convicted of second-degree murder.

The Parole Board granted Jimenez parole on his sixth attempt. He had previously been denied in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019, according to a copy of the parole board’s decision.

In it, the board deemed Jimenez a low risk of recidivism given his lengthy incarceration and participation in rehabilitation programs while in custody. The decision notes that Jimenez had not had a sanctioned disciplinary report in 20 years.

But Holliston Police Chief Matthew J. Stone wrote, “no rehabilitation program can undo what Rolando Jimenez did on that dreadful August evening more than 43 years ago.”

“Inmate Jimenez not only murdered the patriarch of the Johnson family, but he terrified a community that still affects many of us today,” Stone wrote in a statement posted to the department’s Facebook page. “The murder of Officer John Johnson was not an accident. It was not a mistake. And it was not a lapse in judgment by Rolando Jimenez. This was an ambush. This was violent. And this was a murder of a police officer.”

Stone said he was “disgusted” by the decision to release Jimenez, adding that it “goes against every moral that is right and that is just.”

“The decision... to release the murderer of a police officer back into the society in which he once terrorized is... unfathomable,” he wrote.

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