On Heels of Lawsuit Challenging Registrations, Flagler Sheriff Arrests 40 Sex Offenders In Compliance Sweep
The only recognizable pattern in the Flagler County Sheriff’s jail bookings day after day for a year and a half has been the daily batch of redacted names reflecting the local agency’s detention, on behalf of federal immigration authorities, of migrants who may be deported.
Three days ago, another pattern emerged: arrest after arrest of sex offenders charged with failing to comply with any of a series of registration requirements, whether it’s their car, new email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses or any of the numerous other possessions, physical or virtual, that require regular recording with authorities.
Flagler County is among the counties named in a federal lawsuit filed on Aug. 11 by Florida Action Committee, a nonprofit advocating for evidence-based criminal justice policies, challenging Florida’s registration requirements. “The complaint argues that Florida’s registry has evolved far beyond its original purpose as a public notification system and now functions as a system of perpetual punishment that violates multiple provisions of the United States Constitution,” the committee wrote in a release the day the lawsuit was filed.
Glass, the FDLE commissioner, is the first named defendant in the lawsuit. A reporter asked him about the suit today. Glass demurred. “I cannot comment on ongoing litigation,” he said. “But maybe we can come back later at a different time once that litigation goes through.”
The timing of the sweep, however, may not have been as coincidental as it seems, and could well have been Glass’s answer, as brash as his hat, to the lawsuit.
[NOTE: The 40 individuals represent about 30 percent of the registrants in the county.]
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I wish they would stop calling them “operations” because they’re not! More like drive-by mob hits if you ask me. But no, they have to call them Operation: “insert dumb and tired troupe here” to manufacturer credibility and so-called “urgency” to sell this public safety slop to the public.
The cops are just frustrated they can’t put us all in jail for just breathing so doing these carnival side-shows is all they got. Of course it’s about hate and not protecting children.
It actually gives me a tremndous amount of joy that Glass blew a gasket. So what does he do? The same thing a schoolyard bully does, start a tit for tat campaign while thumping they’re chest with a I’ll show them” mantra. .
People are asking questions why go comment on article please!!
What Ryan says…If you scroll all the way down the linked news report from Flagler Live, comments are still open.
Enter your comments there, and be ready to allow their moderators a few hours.
If they want one of us bad enough, they can make something up. That happened to me about a year ago. Five patrol cars drove towards me and surrounded me. They had scanned my license plate parked across the street from a school. I was not at the school but at a lot that is parking for anyone across from the school that has nothing to do with the school.
I was detained for 2 hours while they tried to get ahold of the FDLE because it was weekend. Once all the details were forwarded, surprisingly, the FDLE had my back and told local law enforcement that I had done nothing wrong, but they had the right to ask me to leave, which I did.
Now tell me how they are protecting the public from someone who just wants a parking spot. I have said over and over again, they want to arrest as many as they can so we can never be removed from registration, and hope that some of us could be sent back to prison.
BTW, while they send 6 officers to spend two hours harassing a registered person, meanwhile a store is being robbed, there is a shooting somewhere, a car has crashed into a house, a home invasion is taking place and you get the picture.
Wait, so law enforcement flipped out about parking in a public lot across the street from a school, on a weekend…when children aren’t in school?? Yep. Sounds about right.
Goose
The good AND surprising news is, for some doggone reason, the FDLE had my back and told the officers they could make me leave but that I had not committed a crime by just walking through a field across from a school. It was a weekend and the school was not even open on weekends. I agreed to leave but geez, 4 or 5 officers must have been really bored that day because there didn’t seem to be any other crime, or none at all since I did not commit a crime.
I agree that in all likelihood this was an act of retaliation for the lawsuit. But I also think there’s an element of trying to rack up the easy felony arrests while they’re available. It’s total speculation on my part, but I’m guessing the sheriff had been advised by his staff or county attorney that, after reading the complaint, this suit has a pretty good shot at prevailing, at least in part.
Let’s not forget that most cops and deputies absolutely LOOOOVE felony arrests and in turn, registry rules and the ability to manipulate almost anything into a violation.