Lucy Reid took down the signs in broad daylight.

They had been posted around Winchester for weeks, calling attention to a child sexual abuse case. Reid understood the anger behind them. But the signs seemed to be everywhere, and she had grown weary of seeing her hometown defined by the worst thing alleged to have happened there.

She expected the person who put them up to be upset. She did not expect strangers to call her a “pedophile protector” or contact Our Town Books in Jacksonville, where she worked as a bookseller. Reid said the store was deluged with calls threatening demonstrations outside the shop unless it cut ties with her. One man contacted an author scheduled to appear there and the store’s book distributor. Reid was placed on unpaid leave.

Llaina Groves, owner of Llaina’s Dance & Gym in Jacksonville, said Bast posted a claim linking her husband and business to an alleged sex offender. Groves said he had the wrong person. Bast later posted an apology, she said, but people had already reacted to the accusation. She went to the police because she feared what strangers might do.

When Groves arrived at work Sept. 25, she found “DPDRE” spray-painted on the parking lot in front of the entrance, an abbreviation for “Dead Pedophiles Don’t Reoffend.” The identity of the person who painted them is not known.

Their experiences expose a question larger than one dispute in one small town. Public sex offender registries were created to give people information about convictions. Online, that information can also become a call to punish employers, co-workers and anyone seen as defending them. The consequences reach people who committed serious crimes, people trying to keep a business open and, as both women learned, people with no connection to the registry at all.

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But “To Catch a Predator” stopped being television show and has become a law-enforcement model. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has made high-profile undercover operations targeting people believed to be seeking sex with minors a prominent part of his department’s public-facing law-enforcement strategy. His office continues to publicize these operations with names, photographs, charges and highly produced press conferences.

To be clear, FAC is not defending anyone who commits a crime against a child. The issue is what happens when the line between law enforcement and public spectacle becomes increasingly difficult to see.

To Catch a Predator taught America that there was an audience for the spectacle of the “predator” being caught and many law-enforcement agencies learned that there was an audience for it, too. And once the cameras arrive, the incentives can change. Justice is supposed to be a legal process, not a television genre.

There is also a broader question about the tactics sometimes used when law enforcement knows that a high-profile arrest makes for a better headline and an even better press conference. Undercover operations can involve baiting, steering conversations, introducing increasingly explicit subjects or conduct, and actively guiding an interaction toward the criminal theory investigators are trying to establish — rather than simply observing conduct that was already underway.

None of that automatically makes an investigation unlawful, and undercover policing can be a legitimate investigative tool. But when the same operation is packaged for maximum publicity, the public deserves to ask where legitimate investigation ends and manufactured spectacle begins. A person who has not yet committed a crime can be drawn deeper into an interaction by an undercover officer; a conversation can be steered toward conduct that was not initially contemplated; and an arrest can then be presented to the cameras as though investigators merely stumbled upon an already-formed criminal intent. That distinction matters, because the press conference shows the audience the arrest — not everything that happened before the handcuffs went on.

Primetime is a movie about television, and it should be viewed through that lens. But it also offers an opportunity to consider what happens when public shaming becomes institutionalized, packaged, and promoted as part of the machinery of law enforcement. When arrests become content and press conferences become performances, we should stop and ask whether we are still talking about public safety — or whether we have turned law enforcement into the show, scripted and designed to generate headlines, elevate the profiles of the people running it, and build public and political support for more funding and more operations.

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Police were called to the 5000 block of 38th Street around 11:08 p.m. on July 15. Officers arrived and found Richard Paul, 61, with a single gunshot wound and pronounced dead at the scene.

Another witness told detectives that Barrera said he was in Lubbock to babysit for a family member, but said the actual purpose was to “kill a child molester that lived in the neighborhood,” court documents stated.

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Darren Cosgrove, 47, of Clover Close, Seacroft, Leeds, and Jack Clarkson, 35, of Freemans Way, Wetherby, have been charged with violent disorder, stalking and public nuisance, West Yorkshire Police said.

SOURCE

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In the text, the recipient is advised they are being charged with ‘Failure to Comply with Sex Offender Registration Requirements.’ The spoof alleges that an arrest warrant has been issued and bail set for $12,000 to be paid through e-bonds digital bonding or bitcoin. Following receipt of the text, potential victims receive a phone call with instructions on how and where to remit payment to clear the charge.

SOURCE

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Whether you agree with someone’s crime or not, this case shines a light on a reality that is too often ignored: people labeled as “sex offenders” are among the most vulnerable populations in our nation’s jails and prisons. Their offenses are often public knowledge, making them frequent targets for intimidation, extortion, and violent assaults by other inmates.

Correctional officials know this. They have a constitutional duty to take reasonable steps to protect those in their custody. When that duty is ignored, the consequences can be catastrophic. Unfortunately, the danger doesn’t exist only behind prison walls.

The public registry has made identifying people convicted of sex offenses easier than ever. Across the country, registrants have been assaulted, threatened, harassed, had their homes vandalized, lost employment, and in some tragic cases, even murdered by individuals who found them through publicly available registry information. FAC has long warned that publicly branding people for life carries real risks—not only for registrants, but also for their spouses, children, parents, and neighbors who often become collateral victims.

This $9.5 million settlement is a reminder that the government cannot place a target on someone’s back – whether by incarcerating them or by placing them on a government-sanctioned public registry — and then ignore the foreseeable risk of harm. When the government creates or amplifies the danger to an individual, it has a corresponding duty to take reasonable steps to protect those individuals.

SOURCE

The post WA: $9.5 Million Settlement for Registrant Attacked Behind Bars appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

The public “sex offender” label has become an invitation for vigilantism. The risk to property, to innocent family members, and to the community is real. Combining the label with a person’s identity and location invites mob justice. Residences become targets. Families become collateral damage. Wives, husbands, children, parents, and neighbors all bear the consequences.

No other class of people is expected to live under the constant threat of a crowd outside their front door. We see it over and over, and over again. This label results in harassment, assaults, arson, murders, and countless cases of mistaken identity around the world. Public registries don’t simply “provide information”, they create targets and invite further harm.

The UK registry is not public – yet an online rumor led to this lynch mob. Here in the US, names, photos, addresses, and vehicle information are all publicly accessible.

The United States has now witnessed countless documented cases of people on the registry being harassed, assaulted, shot, beaten, set on fire, and even murdered simply because their names and addresses were made publicly available. Family members and innocent bystanders have also been threatened, harmed or killed as collateral damage..

At some point, can the government honestly continue to describe the registry as a “public safety tool”? The growing body of evidence suggests it’s a system that predictably facilitates violence. FAC suggests it’s a government-sponsored hit list.

END THE REGISTRY!

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Darien Lombrana is accused of using social media to “harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, and embarrass” a registered sex offender, according to court records.

The sheriff’s office said she posted about the family “over and over” on social media sites and community pages. Additionally, court records show she posted their address online with the intent to cause harm.

The victims in the case admitted to ABC13 that the man is a registered sex offender, but said the alleged harassment has impacted the entire family. They tell ABC13 that it includes children who were born decades after the man was placed on the registry.

SOURCE

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The teen proceeded to travel around town, accosting and threatening people convicted of sex crimes, and occasionally shooting at them with the BB gun. On March 15, he was arrested on suspicion of brandishing a weapon and assault with a firearm, according to police and court records.

The alleged targeting of sex offenders is reminiscent of a more serious incident last year, in Fremont, where a 29-year-old man allegedly posed as an accountant, went to the home of a convicted child molester, and killed him, later allegedly bragging to police how good it felt to stab the victim.

In both cases, the sex offenders were targeted through Megan’s Law, a site that tracks people convicted of various sexual offenses and publicly lists their photographs and addresses.

SOURCE

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