Sheriffs Offices Pursuing Petty Offenses

In the past few months, Florida Sheriff’s Offices are looking for low-hanging fruit by going after some very petty offenses. Volusia County issued a press release today announcing the arrest of “76 Volusia County Sex Offenders and Predators”, but when you dig into the details, you will find that very few – just a few – were arrested for a new sex offense. Most were for technical registration violations or some pretty petty crimes. One of the 76, for example, was charged with having a caged racoon.

According to a Sheriff’s office spokesperson, the operation (called “Operation Neptune”) was said to last three-months! That’s a lot of time! The U.S. Marshals Service and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement assisted in the operation. That’s a lot of resources!

What most stories don’t promote is that hundreds (representing more than 9/10ths) of the checks they did, were completely compliant.

A few months ago, in Polk County, “Operation Karma” yielded 26 arrests, most were for failure to register a co-habitant’s vehicle. A violation of a law that many arrested had no clue about. Sheriff Grady Judd told WFTV, “The big question I have is why are these people not reporting these cars or their online identities? They are apparently up to no good and we are going to hold them accountable.” It seems nobody was caught being “up to no good”, they were just trapped by some confusing registration requirements.

And here’s a worst and one that we intend to follow up on… Earlier this month, Steven Williams, a homeless registrant from Brevard County was arrested for eating breakfast at a Burger King – a benign act, but the Burger King was apparently within 1000 feet of a tennis court! If anyone has access to this individual, please contact [email protected].