Weekly Update #59
Dear Members and Advocates,
It’s been a busy week. The first priority in this week’s update is to recognize those members who have stepped up lately. The members who attended the Clay County Board of County Commissioners meeting recently and the members who posted responses and sent letters in response to a “fake news” story out of Yuma, Arizona. Your efforts have been significant in educating the public and showing the strong opposition to the propaganda that has been put out there for years.
As of this email there are nearly 200 responses to Jenny Day’s twitter re-post of an article citing an absurd (and impossible) statistic on recidivism. Most of the responses pointing out what an ignorant moron she is, but many containing facts and citations that clearly demonstrate she got it wrong. Letters to her employer, KYMA, led them to remove the story and replace it with another version attributing the absurd statistic to a family advocacy center, Amberly’s Place, led by another ignorant moron, who when challenged with producing the sources for this “statistic”, hemmed and hawed and still has not furnished a single source.
In the past, these false statistics were put out there in the media and they were left dangling out there to influence public perception without any pushback. This week we demonstrated that can no longer happen. We won’t allow it. Our members, together with advocates from other affiliate groups and the foremost experts in the actual statistics, called her out very publicly. Even if she never issues a retraction, all her followers will see the responses and her employer will know of her incompetence – it’ll likely cause her to put more thought into the issue and unquestionably cause the public to question her credibility and believe the overwhelming counter-evidence.
This week, another crisis erupted when the 100+ persons required to register as sex offenders living in an encampment in Miami-Dade county were given eviction notices. It’s so awful that after more than a dozen years and 7 displacements, this is still allowed to persist. It is more awful that we’ve become so numb to this happening that it wasn’t the first item mentioned as I started writing this weekly update. It should have been and it should never leave our minds.
Each day, more than 600 human beings in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties alone, live homeless solely because they are legislated into homelessness by irrational laws that prevent them from living 2500 feet from certain landmarks that are not even open during the hours they are banned from being present. These men and women are forced to live outdoors in the elements without any access to running water or toilets. More disgusting than the circumstances in which they are forced to live are the politicians that knowingly allow it to persist. We all need to do our part to let the lawmakers and the media know this is happening. Please make sure this story never leaves their radar. We can also reach out for assistance from international human rights organizations. This disaster that’s being carried out on such a mass scale throughout Florida and many other states, should not be allowed to persist.
Finally – we are just $498 short of funding our Ex Post Facto Sustainer – 100% of which goes towards costs and fees associated with Does v Swearingen. Please consider making a donation this week to help us completely fund this obligation and begin fundraising for the next lawsuit.
We are so on the right track! Let’s keep up the momentum.
Sincerely,
The Florida Action Committee
SOME HEADLINES FROM THIS WEEK
CA: Judge invalidates city ordinance limiting where sex offenders can live
A federal judge on Tuesday knocked down a city ordinance that severely restricts where registered sex offenders can live in San Diego. The ruling deals a final blow to a law that hasn’t been enforced for the past decade due to similar legal challenges but has…
Will someone please correct this journalist?!?
Yuma, Arizona’s NBC News 11 just posted a horribly misleading article titled, “Released to Reoffend: News 11 investigates the sex offender next door.” The irresponsible news story makes the absurdly inaccurate statement that “Statistics show 99% of child sex offenders…
Shady Grady Judd at it again.
“Shady” Grady Judd, sheriff of Polk County is at it again. Another name and shame opportunity for people required to register. This time it was “Operation Trick-or-Treat” a month-long operation that resulted in the arrest of 18 out of 1449 registrants (1.2%) in Polk…
URGENT: Sex Offender Shuffle – AGAIN!
As we write this and in the middle of pouring rain in Miami-Dade County, police are serving eviction notices to the cluster of registrants who are legislated into homelessness in Miami-Dade because of the Lauren Book Act. This cluster, which has been shuffled around..
I would like to comment on the registration process for visiting Lee County, Fl.
My wife and I went for a week to Sanibel Island. I registered with the Sheriff’s off registration officer and was told that before I left, I had to come back in and do a full and complete registration all over again! This is absolute insanity. I already had paperwork from Volusia County that has mt dates of travel and return dates. I understand that I have to register when entering their county but I do NOT understand why I have to do it all over again to leave there.
The next item I would like to report are the “Ordinances” that Lee county has and the mis-information they have within them to justify their ridiculous ordinances. See Lee County Ordinances 06-08 and 11-05. I hope someone from the FAC reads this and maybe takes the time to respond if they have already seen these. Some of the information they give inside is actually laughable. Here are a couple of examples:
Taken from 06-08:
WHEREAS, the board of County Commissioners of Lee County ( hereafter I will refer to them as: BCCLC), Florida is deeply concerned about the numerous recent occurrences in our state and elsewhere, whereby convicted sex offenders who have been released from custody repeat the same unlawful acts for which they has originally been convicted; and
WHEREAS, the BCCLC , Florida finds from the available evidence that the recidivism rate for released sex offenders is alarmingly high, especially for those who commit their crimes on children.
11-05:
Recitals:
WHEREAS, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has assembled the following relevant statistics: (I will type those I think you would want to know about!)
3) At least half of convicted child molesters report that they have also sexually molested an adult.
4) Over 80% of convicted adult rapists report that they have molested children.
5) Approximately one third of SO’s report assaulting both males and females. Research shows that that most convicted SO’s have committed many assaults before they are caught.
6) Over two-thirds of offenders who reported committing incest also said they assaulted victims outside the family.
9) Most offenders commit multiple crimes against multiple types of victims with whom they have varying types of relationships (adults, children, male, female, known and unknown).
I would ask that you look these over and let me know your take on these particular sections. Sounds to me either they are mis-printing the actual facts or there are a lot of dumb people out there!