LOL
Doesn't Seattle actually have its very own troll living under a bridge?
So why not another one, just for fun?
Posted on 04/30/2008 9:09:27 AM PDT by XR7
SNOHOMISH — The patch under the bridge is closed in by brambles. Rodent tracks crisscross in the dirt. It may be dry, but still it's not fit for human habitation.
Unless you're a sex offender, that is.The underside of the 88th Street bridge, near this river town's greenhouses and horse farms, is where state government last week assigned a released rapist to sleep.
David J. Torrence, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 1995, had completed his latest prison term (for failing to register as a sex offender.) He had no place to go. So officials gave him a sleeping bag and a rain poncho, then told him to stay under this bridge, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., until further notice.
"We're not proud of it," says Mary Rehberg, parole officer for the state Department of Corrections. "We did it because this is what it has come to. Under a bridge is the best of the options we had left."
That we're now storing sex offenders under bridges is hardly the worst thing to happen in the long struggle over sex crimes. Not compared with what happened to the victims.
But it is a sign of a looming breakdown. There's got to be a better way.
Nobody wants sex offenders around. It can be infuriating to see taxes spent on their treatment or care. But putting them under bridges, like trolls? Set aside whether that's inhuman. It's about the worst outcome possible, for public safety.
Torrence was released from state prison at Monroe on April 20. He is a Level 3 — high risk for reoffending. He is not deemed so dangerous, or his crimes so serious, that he qualifies to be locked up longer.
Rehberg tried for months to find him a place to live.
He's barred by local ordinance...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
A chain hotel in Astoria, OR is partially built under the Astoria bridge to WA state.
Their readerboard:
Where sleeping under the bridge is a good thing.
Wait wait wait. I just saw the other day on one of my daughter’s new fangled cartoons that trolls are only mean because someone has not been nice to them. If we are just nice to them, they will be GREAT friends and let everyone pass nicely.
WTH????
Wow.
LOL
Doesn't Seattle actually have its very own troll living under a bridge?
So why not another one, just for fun?
LOL! Looks like he grabbed a cell phone.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004384732_gps01m.htmlDOC chief says victims will get earlier notice
David TorrenceThe head of the state Department of Corrections has ordered that victims of sex crimes must be notified when those convicted of the attacks remove their state-issued GPS tracking device. DOC Secretary Eldon Vail's mandate comes less than a week after David Torrence, a Level 3 offender, apparently sliced off his ankle bracelet and vanished from the Snohomish area. The Monroe woman who was raped by Torrence in 1995 when she was 15 said Tuesday that Vail's action is a little late. "I'm glad they are trying to change their policy, but I can't believe they didn't do it before," said the woman. "I never thought I would be living through this nightmare again. I just hope he goes to prison where he belongs." The woman said that with Torrence on the loose, she's afraid to leave her house and is worried about the safety of her five children...
I have noticed that there are at least two sex offenders in my town living on streets where there are elementary schools.
That “cellphone” is a full-sized (real) VW bug.
There is. Keep track of them with gravestones.
First, "sex offender" is not the same thing as "predatory sex offender" is not the same thing as "child sex offender." Second, as others point out on FR, some "sex offenders" are folks caught urinating in public, or teens with younger girlfriends. Third, of "child sex offenders" the vast majority were known to their victims, and the vast majority of those were family members.
The "leap out of the bushes" child sex offender is in fact a quite rare thing.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. According to federal studies (search for "U.S. Department of Justice Statistics"), over half the sex offense convictions every year are First-Time convictions. And when it comes to child sex offenders, the number goes up way higher.
Also, zoning laws around the country have been extremely counterproductive. In Iowa OVER HALF the registered sex offenders disappeared when they enacted their zoning law. Think about it a minute: they're homeless, they're probably unemployed, they have Nothing To Lose anymore -- and you have no idea where they are. Just like the fellow in this article.
The politicians are actually making it more dangerous for you and yours, not less. But the public remains ignorant of the real issues so they get away with with selling feel-good sounds-good snake-oil nostrums.
No I'm not. There's a level III sex offender, rated "potential high risk to the community" and "a threat to re-offend", who just moved in down the road from my son's preschool. And yes, he is a child molester. "Fortunately" he has lately only been caught videotaping young girls.
I can see what you mean by the "nothing to lose" factor. Nevertheless it is obviously true that there are child sex offenders who have a compulsion to offend over and over again. As the Catholic priest scandal shows, not to mention the frequent news about child molesters who have been caught working in other occupations that allow close contact with children, the number of these people is not small. Parents are right to be concerned about protecting their children.
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