Friday, April 8, 2011

Officers located offenders who failed to register.


Eight arrested in sex offender sweep

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/news/crimewatch/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110404_11_A11_CUTLIN991453

By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer
Published: 4/4/2011  2:22 AM
Last Modified: 4/4/2011  8:56 AM

In the second sweep of its kind in Tulsa, teams of law enforcement officers arrested eight convicted sex offenders on failure-to-register charges.

Members of the Tulsa Police Department's Exploitation Unit, the U.S. Marshals Service's Northern Oklahoma Violent Crimes Task Force and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections set out in March to find sex offenders who are in violation of sex-offender registration laws, police Sgt. John Adams said.

In addition to the eight arrests, 47 other sex offenders were located in other Oklahoma jurisdictions and out of state, Adams said. If an offender crossed state lines, agents are continuing to investigate whether charges are warranted under the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

And the search for violators isn't over, Adams said.

"This is the second one that we have done, and we are planning on doing them about every quarter, give or take," Adams said.

Adams supervises the Exploitation Unit, which investigates missing-persons and runaway cases, coordinates Amber Alerts, and maintains sex- and violent-offender registrations. Last summer, the unit signed an agreement to work with the U.S. Marshals Service's task force.

Then in September, the agencies took part in their first sweep targeting sex offenders who are charged with failing to register. The sweep in March was the second such crackdown.

Oklahoma law requires convicted sex offenders to specify where they intend to live when they leave Department of Corrections custody. Then, if they don't register in that city or any other jurisdiction, they are considered "absconders."

Offenders who move to Oklahoma from other states are also required to register here.

Adams said it is difficult to track registered sex offenders under the current laws and that it can also be very difficult to get charges of failing to register filed against them.

"Right now, it is very difficult to get charges filed on the absconders because of having to prove jurisdiction," he said. "We physically have to locate the offender living at a location where they are not registered."

Adams said detectives have cases where the offenders have signed paperwork, such as Department of Human Services or property records, that indicate that they live in Tulsa, but police still cannot get charges filed against them.

They also have cases where there is evidence that an offender has repeatedly used a debit card in Tulsa or has been stopped by police and told the officers that he lives here, but it still is not enough evidence for a charge, he said.

Some of the offenders who are now classified as absconders have gone to a police station and tried to register but were told that they couldn't because their addresses were in "safe zones."

A law took effect in 2006 prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of playgrounds, parks or child-care facilities. They were already prohibited from living within that distance of schools.

In Tulsa, that made more than 90 percent of the city a safe zone, meaning sex offenders couldn't legally live there. The restrictive residency laws have come under scrutiny because many sex offenders are no longer registering because they can't find a place to live legally.

"We have talked to legislators who say that they know it is a bad law, but they are not going to do anything about it," Adams said.

Proposed legislation: Tulsa police say pending legislation addressing sex offenders who live in mobile home parks will not affect the Tulsa area.

Last week, dozens of convicted sex offenders attended a legislative committee hearing to protest a bill they said will force them from their mobile home park in south Oklahoma City. The men who attended the meeting are residents of the Hand Up ministry, which houses more than 270 offenders in the mobile home park.

The bill states that mobile homes or trailers cannot be defined as multi-unit structures for purposes of sex-offender living restrictions.

The House Judiciary Committee approved the measure over the objections of some members who expressed concern that it would force the residents to become homeless.

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”