CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS TO MONITOR POLICE ON HALLOWEEN
“Cop-watch” hotline to be open for six hours
Albuquerque, NM | Sacramento, CA—The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) and the Alliance for Constitutional Sexual Offense Laws (ACSOL) denounce what they believe are unconstitutional laws and blanket restrictions imposed by some state statutory schemes and supervising authorities across the country each Halloween.
The organizations join together in demanding to know why every year at this time newspapers and TV news programs are full of reports about police activities to curb this so-called menace that supposedly sprouts up around Halloween when there is no evidence to support the myth.
The two groups have assembled a team of volunteer attorneys and plan to hold a third annual Halloween Marathon. This year’s call-in program will last for six continuous hours with the primary purpose of receiving reports and monitoring law enforcement’s actions nationwide.
Janice Bellucci, ACSOL’s executive director, points to the research showing that there is no increased threat of sexual harm to children on Halloween and to the fact that no report has been found of a child being harmed on Halloween by someone on the registry. “We deplore the hysteria created by sensational reporting of what is no more than grandstanding and a total waste of public resources expended year after year,” she says.
NARSOL’s executive director Brenda Jones emphasizes, “We want it to be clear to everyone that we are putting law enforcement and policymakers on notice that we are: (1) monitoring them; (2) winning legal challenges all over the country; and (3) have sufficient momentum to continue chipping away at their unconstitutional creations. The most unconscionable aspect of this,” she continued, “is that children are at an increased risk on Halloween of being killed or injured in an auto-pedestrian accident, and yet law enforcement chooses to assign its officers to checking that registered sex offenders are not handing out candy rather than putting them on traffic patrol and intoxicated-driver
checkpoints in high trick-or-treat areas.”
Bellucci fully agreed and praised the recent journalistic efforts to frame this issue around facts, not myths, as presented at Reason, the Appeal, and the Washington Post.
Details about how to sign up for attending the marathon, the numbers to call, etc. will be posted soon.
My wife and I go to dinner and a movie on Halloween. They can knock on our door until they knock a hole in it for all I care. I have an excellent relationship with all of my neighbors so it’s not an issue. Several years ago we did have a public action group come knocking on our front door to do a “Citizen’s Check”. Since we have the property prominently posted with No Trespassing signs I called the sheriff’s office and had them trespassed from our property.
Every year the neighborhood watch where I live, not an HOA, does a map of the area showing all of the registered people. This scares me because we have been fine so far but there are people out there that could use that to hurt my family. I’m not ok with the potential risk to my family. Sure, I know it’s already there, but this seems invasive.
Yes, I would be greatly honored to provide any manual assistance. I look forward to the update on this in the coming days.
We could have local events specifically for registrants and their families that documents their whereabouts for the trick or treat night….
Ben! I think that’s a wonderful idea! Anyone else?
The only problems I can think of is that many are on probation with 10PM curfews. And also if many of us were gathered, and it became public, there could be vigilantism.
I dunno, though. Maybe we need to be the broad target of vigilantism. Might help garner some sympathy. (Like the sit-ins of the 60’s did)
Seems like this foolishness needs to be made very public. Anything this evil deserves close public scrutiny! (Aand that’s a big part of the problem – the general public has no idea how rigorous and senseless this oppression really is.)
FT.Collins Co spent $300k defending against women going topless only to decide it was too expensive a fight. Discrimination issues because men could.
They need to send flyers or emails to every sheriffs office in the country putting them on notice.
Thank God!!
It’s about time we started pushing back!
Hello JJJJ, Like you, I am grateful to help fighting back even its a bite at a time!!!