Inmate freed under COVID release charged with committing murder after being let out

A New Jersey man freed from prison under emergency COVID protocols is charged with committing murder just days after being let out of prison.

Jerry Crawford has been charged with murder in Bridgeton, N.J., after being released from jail last November; the alleged killing reportedly took place just days after he was released.

The inmate was reportedly released on “public health emergency credits.” Many prisons over the past year scrambled to release prisoners out of fears that prison blocks would become hotbeds of COVID-19 outbreaks. 

Also charged alongside Crawford was Yusuf Waites, another New Jersey man who had reportedly been released in October of last year.