A felon released early rammed his vehicle into a law enforcement officer last Saturday in Chattanooga, TN. His early release is due to Justice Department guidelines set by the previous administration.

According to The Chattanoogan, police, who were dispersing a large crowd, saw Lawande Haggard attempting to exit a parking lot when gunshots were fired across the street at the Dialysis Clinic parking lot.

When officers approached Haggard’s vehicle and tried to conduct a traffic stop, he drove his car into them and hit one of the officers, Times Free Press reported. They then fired their weapons at Haggard’s vehicle.

The Chattanoogan notes the officer struck by the suspect was not seriously injured, and Haggard was subsequently captured and taken into custody and charged.

The suspect has a previous record and received an 80-month federal prison sentence back in 2013 for selling narcotics. However, under the new sentencing guidelines pushed through by the Obama administration last year, his term was reduced to 60 months.

The reduction was based on a sentencing range that was later dropped and backdated by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Attorney General Jeff Sessions came out against the Obama era sentencing guidelines and recommended Henry Hudson, a district judge who agrees with the AG’s tough on crime stance, to the U.S. Sentencing Commission last June.

(RELATED: Sessions Recommends ‘Hang ‘Em High’ Judge On US Sentencing Panel)

“That is the place where the biggest sentencing reforms have been made in Washington, in that nothing the White House or Congress has done comes close,” Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told The Wall Street Journal. “This little agency is a big deal and Sessions wants to exercise his influence, which is shaping up into a fight.”

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