The Danger of Going After the "Usual Suspect".
Very often we will read a story about an assaulted or missing child, where there are no suspects but “police are investigating the 100 registered sex offenders in the area”. As if when something like this happens the registry immediately narrowed down the pool of suspects to a limited group that the police should focus on.
The stories invariably list the names of a few random registrants who are completely innocent but have the misfortune of living in the area as well as quotes from an outraged parent or two who question how they are allowed to live so close to anywhere or how they are allowed to live at all.
In most cases, in fact in almost all cases, the assailant is not a registrant.
Take for example this case out of Red Bluff, California. Police arrested an 83 year old registered citizen for allegedly grabbing the hand of a 12 year old. As it turns out… the guy was on a GPS that proved he was nowhere near the incident and it wasn’t him.
So what did we learn from this story:
1) presuming a registered citizen is the usual suspect and devoting resources to investigating them is, in most cases a waste of time and money.
2) providing authorities with default suspects diverts attention from the actual investigative process.
3) it’s really easy for a registrant to get wrongfully implicated.
4) the registry did nothing to prevent this assault.
The scariest thing we learned from this story comes from the comments. If you read the title to the story it reads, “Wrong Man Arrested for Grabbing Child”. The story goes on to explain that the police arrested this poor guy but it turned out he had nothing to do with it. STILL, the comments to the article included, “ The guy is 83 and obviously has no ability to control his “urges” and never will. Lock him up and throw away the key!!!“, “He’s a straight up child molester. I’d bash his head in and feel no pity.“, “This is WHY pedophiles should NOT be let out of jail/confinement. ”
The article is about how the guy DIDN’T commit the crime, yet most of the comments still suggest that he should nonetheless be locked up or have his head bashed in. Scary from several angles!
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Also… When will it be time to identify where cops live with signs on their lawns to warn neighborhood residents of the dangers of living near law “enforcement” officers?
2 Los Angeles Cops Charged With Sexually Assaulting 4 Women While On Duty – http://huff.to/1Q1UPdK
they can visit and knock on my door all they want there is no law yet that says i must answer the door when they do checks or anything else
And sadly, these idiot commenters with the reading comprehension of a five-year old are are also voters.
Because I’m feeling masochistic this morning, I went ahead and read the comments section. To me the scariest part is that some of these people commenting *really* ought to know better.
The one who presented us with this little gem: ” The guy is 83 and obviously has no ability to control his “urges” and never will. Lock him up and throw away the key!!!” has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and is a practicing social worker. ….I just don’t know what to say….
OH MAN! I’ve never thought to look up the commenters, but good idea. Sad that “educated” people are so ignorant.
Hmmm… If they post on a public forum I suppose there’s nothing stopping someone from forwarding screen shots to their employer…
….means that person will live in fear of being arrested because of a crime committed by someone else. So if you “mooned” someone in college…..the registry police are coming after you!
If an abduction is to take place in Florida, Joshua Lunsford should be contacted by law enforcement immediately. Oh wait a minute, Joshua Lunsford is not a registered sex offender.
I have yet to see a case where a random sweep of area registrants following a missing persons report that yielded results. Not one time.