Schenectady man arrested in Colonie for 9th time this year

Colonie police arrested 26-year-old Khalil Hankins of Schenectady Monday for allegedly stealing a truck full of tools from a Latham parking lot last month.

Police around the region are familiar with him.

"He’s been involved in assaults, burglaries, robberies, pursuits in a vehicle, stolen credit cards, stolen identities, you name it, seems like he’s involved in it," said Colonie Police Lieutenant Daniel Belles.

Since January, Hankins has been arrested in places including East Greenbush, Schenectady, Wilton, Saratoga, Glenville, Malta, Scotia, and Menands — nine times in Colonie this year alone.

"This particular defendant, he’s been arrested sometimes multiple times in the same day by different agencies, so it’s pretty clear that when he gets arrested, he’s not really held accountable," said Lieutenant Belles.

"It seems like he’s been able to stay in the public and commit more crimes by the recent reforms. So it’s hard for us to sometimes explain to the victims why this person is still out of jail."

Several times, Hankins was arrested with Ava Maddalla of Glenville.

Police say again and again, they’re released to re-offend because of bail reform.

Police say not only is it demoralizing for officers, it is also a threat to public safety.

The Glenville police chief wrote about the pair and bail reform months ago.

"When you create laws that take away the ability for a judge to make a decision whether or not a person is going to come back to court, whether or not a person is a liability on the streets and is probably going to recommit — people are going to figure this out and keep doing what they’re doing," said Glenville Police Chief Stephen Janik.

In Glenville, police say the pair crashed a truck that was stolen out of Colonie, injuring another driver in April. They were arrested and released. And then that same day, police say they tried to steal a U-Haul, and assaulted and robbed a locksmith.

NewsChannel 13 told Maddalla was arrested again on Wednesday afternoon.

Hankins was turned over to the Rensselaer County Sheriff‘s office, which had a bench warrant for him. Now he has been remanded to jail without bail.

Chief Janik says residents are paying the price because lawmakers didn’t think things through.

"They decided to paint with a broad brush, create bail reform, change a lot of different laws, decriminalize different things just because situations were bad in other parts of the state, especially downstate," said Chief Janik. "Be very clear, the issues that are going on downstate and in the city are not the same issues that are going on in Upstate New York."

Authorities say the pair has active warrants for failure to appear in court.