Tim Steller's column: Repeat offenders, not school case, prosecutor's real problem

In retrospect, it makes sense that Daniel Hollander’s case brought tensions between Tucson police and the Pima County Attorney’s Office out into the open.

Hollander put himself in a position to commit a mass shooting at a Tucson school, going into the Legacy Traditional School gym on the morning of Jan. 16. Kids were attending class; Hollander was armed and apparently in a psychotic episode. It could have been really bad.

A police officer working at the school, William Bonanno, disarmed Hollander and arrested him, earning him accolades as a lifesaving hero. Later, a grand jury indicted Hollander on three serious felonies and a misdemeanor.

Then the good story turned sour, the way many police see it. Hollander got a plea deal and a short prison sentence — 1 1/2 years in prison and a subsequent 10 years of probation. That plea deal and sentence pushed festering frustrations out into the open.

“When someone in crisis goes into one of our elementary schools with violent intent to harm children, they should be held criminally accountable for a significant amount of time, in conjunction with court-ordered treatment,” Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar said.

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover pushed back, blaming police mishandling of the reading of Hollander’s Miranda rights for the need to offer him this plea agreement. She also pointed out that bringing a gun on school grounds is a misdemeanor, a law she wants to change. Her office even released all the police body cam footage to show the Miranda problem.

I’m not as outraged as most people seem to be about the Hollander outcome. To me, it makes sense in some ways, even if it is a short prison sentence.

But I also think the police have a point about Conover’s office and the courts. It’s not as evident in the Hollander case as in the pattern of light treatment of repeat offenders.

Federal gun-possession cases

Since Conover took office in 2021, complaints that her office is too forgiving to criminals came up in various cases, and especially in one area: The prosecution of people charged with illegally possessing guns. This crime is charged almost exclusively against repeat offenders: The reason they’re prohibited from possessing a gun is usually a previous felony conviction.

And police have found it a useful charge to take Tucson’s gang members and gunslingers off the streets. When I interviewed Kasmar and Capt. Doug Foster on Aug. 29, 2024, they noted a significant percentage of the city’s homicide defendants — one third so far that year at that time — were prohibited possessors.

Yet, police had noticed many prohibited-possessor cases being pled down to lesser charges of attempted possession, or solicitation of possession — charges that often make defendants eligible for probation-only sentences.

So, police started taking some prohibited-possessor cases to federal prosecutors instead. It was part of a new partnership with the Justice Department, but it was also to ensure that people like Furshawn Nichols ended up with a prison sentence.

Nichols had a juvenile record for weapons misconduct, an adult charge of prohibited possessor, pled down to a probation-eligible attempted-possession charge by the Pima County Attorney’s Office in 2022. Then he had a new arrest in 2024 for illegally possessing an AR-15-style rifle.

TPD took this case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Nichols remained jailed, and on Aug. 27 this year, he pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally possessing the gun. The plea agreement requires a two-year prison term.

Repeated gun arrests

This prohibited-possessor issue apparently has been sensitive for Conover. On July 2, she put out a news release noting that while the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted 60 local prohibited-possessor cases last year, her office prosecuted 572.

Last week I got a look at those 572, and the number isn’t what it appears to be. Of those 572, about 44% of the cases were dismissed, data from the county attorney’s office shows. So, you can subtract 252 cases from the 572 claimed to get 320 cases the office actually prosecuted in 2024.

And of the 572 total, another 17% of the cases were pleaded down to a lesser charge of attempted possession or solicitation to possess. I spent a few hours going through 20 of those cases Friday, and found that nine of those 20 defendants received probation-only sentences.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

That includes Michael Dwayne Ducksworth, who moved to Tucson in March 2024, according to a presentence report.

Tucson police arrested him on July 17, 2024, after a traffic stop in which officers discovered a 9 mm handgun under the driver’s seat, a .380 semi-automatic handgun in a holster on his hip and methamphetamine in the car, according to a criminal complaint. He was charged with being a prohibited possessor of firearms and possessing meth.

Ducksworth had two previous convictions for solicitation to illegally possess a firearm, according to the pre-sentence report. Nevertheless, in a new plea agreement with the Pima County Attorney’s Office, he was allowed to plead down to his third conviction for that same crime.

“If placed on probation, the defendant plans to turn his life around, seek employment, and lead a productive and law-abiding lifestyle,” says the report, which is by the Adult Probation Department, not the Pima County Attorney’s Office.

In December, he did get a sentence of three years on probation. But on June 10, 2025, despite Ducksworth’s best intentions, Tucson police arrested him again. During a traffic stop, they discovered he had a Smith and Wesson 9 mm handgun, and seven grams of meth, a criminal complaint says.

‘Revolving door’ for criminals

It’s the revolving door that drives police crazy and can endanger the public. When an officer was attacked by a shoplifting suspect in May, leaving him with a swollen and bloodied face and a broken cheekbone, the Tucson Police Officers Association spoke out against the judge who issued a lower bond than prosecutors requested.

“Richard Lopez is not an anomaly,” they said of the defendant, who pleaded not guilty. “He represents the type of repeat offender our officers deal with every day. This is the reality of policing in Tucson: a revolving door of individuals with extensive criminal histories who continue to victimize our community.”

In May, Tucson police arrested King David Rugamba (his first name is “King”) and accused him of the aggravated assault and kidnapping of a female jogger in Reid Park, who was able to escape him in the park. The department noted in a news release that Rugamba “has an extensive criminal history, including a 2022 arrest for murder.”

I checked his case files in Pima County Superior Court and found that in December 2021, Rugamba was accused of felony disorderly conduct for flashing a gun at someone. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Judge Scott McDonald to three years of probation.

Then, in April 2022, Rugamba was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, attempted armed robbery and other charges after two men were shot outside a smoke shop. A codefendant was convicted of the killing, and Rugamba pleaded guilty in January 2023 to tampering with evidence in that case. He was sentenced, again, to three years of probation.

In April this year, he was arrested again on a charge of being a prohibited possessor of a firearm. In this case, the county attorney’s office asked for a higher bond, $10,000, than the $1,000 bond that the judge ordered and Rugamba was able to pay, Conover told KVOA. He was able to get out on that lower bond when the alleged assault occurred in Reid Park.

Hollander case different

In the context of these repeat offenders given repeated breaks, I am not so troubled by Hollander’s treatment. Much of the outrage is based on the allegation by police that he said he wanted to shoot children at the school.

That was an unrecorded statement allegedly made to an officer at the scene. When an officer’s body cam was on minutes later, though, Hollander said the opposite, repeatedly.

“I can explain all of this to you. It really is a misunderstanding. I didn’t intend to hurt the children or anything. I was guided here by a lady I can’t see but I know she was present,” he said in one moment.

In another: “It was not to shoot or kill kids or do the next Columbine or whatnot. If I wanted to do that I could have done that long ago.”

What Hollander did, in an era of school shootings, was terrifying, but his intent was never clear. He went into the gym, where photos were taking place, and sat on the floor until Bonanno collared him, never trying to pull out his gun.

Hollander was hallucinating and on drugs. I would be more comfortable with a longer prison sentence that ensures he’s not a threat to the public for years, but he’s not a repeat offender and appears to me to be a good candidate to recover and not re-offend as he receives mental-health treatment.

But while I’m hopeful Hollander won’t walk back through that revolving door, I’m worried about the others who do.