In 1988 16-year-old David Brom attacked his family with an axe, killing his mother and father as well as his younger siblings. An older brother who was not home at the time escaped the carnage.

Brom was tried as an adult and convicted of four counts of first degree murder, though he plead not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sentenced to three life sentences for his crimes. 

As convicted, he would not have been eligible for parole until 2037, according to Fox News. But, under a law signed by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in 2023, Brom was set free on work release on the morning of July 29.

Under the provisions of that law [244.05 Supervised Release Term], offenders who are serving one or more mandatory life sentences and who were under the age of 18 at the time they committed their crimes would be eligible for potential release after review and determination made by a new supervised release board.

According to Rochester's NBC affiliate station KTTC News,"During a January hearing before the board, Brom apologized for his actions and said he was struggling with depression at the time of the killings."

“I struggled with depression for some time and it had clouded my thoughts, and it clouded my ability to process things," Brom said, according to KTTC. 

After the hearing, Brom was not given parole by the board, but was granted supervised work release that includes GPS monitoring.

Soft on Crime Political Controversy

When the measure that ended up releasing Brom was passed in the Minnesota legislature, it had received some bipartisan support, with one Republican, Patricia Mueller, saying at the time that "the idea that we're going to hold very young children to a life behind bars doesn't sit well with me."

It seems unlikely that she was thinking of 16-year-old axe murderers when she made that statement. 

In contrast to the leftist predilection to empathize inappropriately with murderous thugs and criminals because of some fuzzy sense of unfairness associated with their incarceration, normal Americans identify with the victims who have suffered at the hands of thugs and killers.

One such normal American in Minnesota is House Speaker Lisa Demuth, also a Republican. "This is not justice being served," she said of Brom's release, "it is an insult to the memory of his victims."