Sex offenders in school: What are the rules?

BRENT CHAMPACO; The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA
Last updated: December 8th, 2007 01:22 AM (PST)

Gig Harbor High School suspended four students this week for posting fliers warning peers about two juvenile sex offenders who attend classes there. Full Story

State Sen. Tim Grendell wants to test 'sex offender radar'

Reginald Fields, Plain Dealer (OHIO)

Columbus- A state lawmaker is promoting a Cuyahoga County company's idea for a new electronic device that could warn people when a sex offender is near.

The personal alert system, called Offendar (short for offender radar), would be about the size of a key fob and would vibrate when an offender wearing a monitoring bracelet is within 50 yards.

State Sen. Tim Grendell, a champion of lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key legislation, has invited the Chagrin Falls company behind the technology to demonstrate it today during a Statehouse hearing.

"If there is someone in your area that the state has decided should be wearing an ankle bracelet, you have no idea," said Jerry Pignolet, one of the principals in Offendar LLC. Offendar "is not going to deter him, but it gives you an opportunity to gather your family, get in the car and lock the doors." [Ed: Extraordinary! These are dangerously stupid people!]

But David Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, said the system plays on fears in the community while penalizing people who have already served time in prison for their crimes.

Singleton called Offendar "utterly ridiculous and absurd."

"What are we trying to do, make it impossible for people to get on their feet again and be productive citizens?" he said. "This is crazy, and I'm outraged by it, because it doesn't make my daughter any safer."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said Grendell shouldn't waste state taxpayers' time or money on such a system.

"The assumption that someone once did something bad and is still a danger to everyone else is simply false," said Jeffrey Gamso of the ACLU. "It's going to keep people scared, when the majority of these people are unlikely to ever offend again." Full Story

Accuser of Jailed Sex Offender Says He's Innocent

BALTIMORE CITY PAPER, by Chris Landers

...When Marian first accused Barnes, in 1996, he was dating her sister Tabitha, who was using drugs and working as a prostitute. Marian now says it was jealousy over her sister's closeness with Barnes, and a desire to break them up, that led her to accuse him of rape.

"The only way I knew how to stop him," she says in an interview after the tests were over, "was if I made it to where she was never able to see him again." Full Story\
[Ed: Remember, all that is needed to convict anyone of child sexual assault is the word of a child on the stand. No other proof is needed]

Warning sex offenders; 'Offendar' may find you

Cleveland Plain Dealer, Reginald Fields

State Sen. Tim Grendell of Chester Township, a vocal supporter of various measures aimed at getting tougher on crime, says he is excited about a Geauga County company's proposal "to take real-time monitoring of sex offenders to a new level."

He has invited the company to make a presentation Wednesday to a Senate subcommittee on a device it is developing and seeking to patent called "Offendar," short for offender radar. Offendar LLC is marketing it as a "personal threat detection system featuring a key-fob sized electronic device." The device would give the person carrying it "a vibrating, auditory or visual alarm when a sex offender or other person wearing a court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet is in the immediate vicinity."

Why is the company proposing it? "The public wants more than after-the-fact tracking of sex offenders. Many people want to know when a threat is in the vicinity so they can take steps to protect themselves and their children before something happens," according to the company's presentation.

The idea is sure to be provocative, especially among those who think efforts targeting sex offenders have gone too far.

Grendell seems to have no reservations about the company's proposal. "In seeing their idea and understanding how it can enhance what Ohio is already doing, I was very impressed," he said in a memo Monday to fellow lawmakers and the media. [Ed: So stupid and so bizarre it needs no further comment. An appeal to sheer stupidity!]

Comment from Reader:
Why don't we put a monitoring device on lawmakers so we know when they are in the area. They seem to feel that the State of Ohio needs to monitor and know all, so I think that should include monitoring them as well. Course, then everyone would know their dirty laundry too and the game is that they only get to know others dirty laundry...

Inmate (Sex Offender) found dead in Tracy prison cell. Officials investigating incident as possible homicide

TRACY — An inmate was found dead inside his cell at Deuel Vocational Institution Saturday morning, prison officials said.

Prison staff handing out the morning doses of medication to inmates found Randy James Rabelos, 28, unresponsive in his cell around 7:20 a.m. who appeared to have been dead for a "couple of hours," Lt. Ray Munoz said.

Investigators from the prison, along with the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Justice, are investigating the matter and have questioned Rabelos' cell mate, Rick Henry Kase, 39, from Santa Clara County.

"They were in the cell together for the last 12 hours," Munoz said. "We got started into looking at how Rabelos died and immediately started to look at his cell mate. The case is being investigated as a possible homicide."

According to preliminary findings from the San Joaquin County Coroner's Office, Rabelos appeared to have died from asphyxiation with blunt force trauma. An official cause of death is pending a toxicology report which can take up to six weeks to complete.

Rabelos arrived at DVI in September from Tuolumne County and was serving a three-year sentence as a sex offender, Munoz said.

Kase arrived at the prison a little more than a month ago and is currently serving a term for parole violation, and being a convicted felon in possession of a deadly weapon. [Ed: Sex offenders tortured and murdered in prisons are among the least publicized crimes today]

Police ID man found dead in Lincoln apartment

Associated Press - November 6, 2007 9:35 AM ET

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Lincoln police have identified the man whose body was found in an apartment this weekend.

Police say 44-year-old Andrea Williams died of a stab wound. His body was found Saturday morning inside the apartment after police were called there.

No arrests have been made, and police have yet to rule it a homicide. They instead are calling his death suspicious.

Police say Williams was registered as sex offender and had recent run-ins with police.

Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com [Ed: Another likely vigilante killing]