Wallace shooter paroled from Md. prison

HAGERSTOWN, Md., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Arthur Bremer, jailed for 35 years for shooting and paralyzing former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, was released Friday from a Maryland prison.

Prison officials, who tried keep Bremer's release low-key, had refused to confirm Bremer's release date from the Hagerstown, Mad., prison, although the date was communicated to victims, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Prison officials also wouldn't confirm where Bremer, 57, would live once he's released but a source told the Sun it would be in Maryland.

Bremer was 21 when he shot Wallace and wounded three others, including a Secret Service agent, during a 1972 political rally at a Laurel, Md., shopping center. The shooting forced Wallace, the one-time segregationist, to abandon his maverick bid to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. Wallace died in 1998.

Bremer's infraction-free tenure at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown qualified him for mandatory release under Maryland law after having served roughly two-thirds of his 53-year sentence, authorities said.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King called Bremer's early release "an affront to justice, it is an affront to the Wallace family and it is an affront to the citizens of Alabama that this man could escape the small measure of justice that remained."