The Other McCain

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‘He’s No Stranger to Us’: The Problem of Our ‘Revolving-Door’ Justice System

Posted on | May 14, 2025 | No Comments

On the afternoon of April 1, 2024, a woman ran into a convenience store in the Tampa suburb of Seffner, Florida. Her face was covered in bruises, according to Ashraf Zakhar, the clerk who was working the counter: “She was screaming and crying and said ‘I need help. I need help.’ She just ran to the bathroom and locked herself in.” The clerk called 911 and police showed up. It turned out that the woman had been held captive for more than two months, beaten and terrorized by 48-year-old Walter Medina.

Habitual criminal Walter Medina

Medina was previously convicted of false imprisonment — twice. The first time he was convicted was in the 90s and the second time was in 2010. He served four years in prison for the more recent conviction.
“He’s no stranger to us,” said Amanda Granit, a public information officer with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. “The details of this horrific case that we’re talking about this week also appear to be what he’s done in the past.”

Is it too much to ask that, when police catch a dangerous criminal, the courts sentence the perp to something more serious than a slap on the wrist? Whatever the sentence was the first time Walter Medina committed false imprisonment, certainly his sentence should have been more than four years the second time he committed the same crime.

Do the prosecutors and judges in Hillsborough County have no understanding of their role in securing public safety? It is unfortunate that some people — obviously including some judges and district attorneys who ought to know better — think of prison in terms of punishment and, on the basis of that mistaken premise, they proceed to the erroneous belief that it is “mercy” to avoid imposing lengthy sentences on convicted criminals. Perhaps they need to talk to the victim in this case, and ask her what she thinks about the “mercy” of putting a vicious animal like Walter Medina back on the streets.

If the criminal justice system fails to protect the public from such monsters — violent repeat offenders — what good is “democracy”? A government that does not protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens has failed in the only purpose that any legitimate government serves. Of course, some criminals will evade justice, because cops can’t catch every suspect, but what about a case like this? The cops did their job, twice apprehending Walter Medina, and obtaining evidence sufficient to convict him, but somewhere between the guilty verdict and the time the judge pronounced sentence, something went badly wrong. However much time Medina served in the 1990s for his first conviction, it wasn’t enough to deter him from re-offending, so that he faced justice again in 2010 — and yet got only four years behind bars?

Bad enough that a woman was heinously abused because the Hillsborough County courts failed to put Walter Medina away for 15 or 20 years, but do you have any idea how many lives were put at risk in order to catch Medina this time? See, in fleeing from Hillsborough County, Medina made the mistake of heading east into Polk County.

If you know anything about Sheriff Grady Judd, you know that Polk County is just about the last place any criminal wants to be. So the Polk County deputies found Walter Medina, who led them on a chase onto I-4, where the Florida Highway Patrol took over and chased the perp into Orange County. Video of that pursuit is one of the scariest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched a whole lot of police chase videos.

 

Not only were dozens of innocent motorists endangered by Medina’s reckless driving, but the troopers chasing him were also endangered. That alone should be enough for a 10-year prison sentence, beyond and above whatever the sentence is for what Walter Medina did to that poor woman he held captive for more than two months. It would be wrong if this vile human stain ever gets out of prison, but certainly he ought not to be turned loose before 2050. Lock him up and throw away the key.



 

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Category: Crime

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