"We're inundated with sexual assault cases"

That's Captain Terry of the Contra Costa County sheriff department, lamenting about how stretched thin his staff is, regarding both registered sexual offenders and those that haven't yet been caught. He needs more money, I'd bet, and manpower to really police the situation.

Where-oh-where might they get more money?


The trillion dollars spent on the "war on drugs" since 1970 has brought us 35 million arrests and done nothing to eliminate drugs from society. We need to be using that money in better ways, and the horrific nightmare that has been the last 18 years of of Jaycee Dugard's life illustrates how we could better use police resources.

The speakers at LEAP want to restore the publics faith in police and also be allowed to do real police work instead of constant, resource sucking drug interdiction. I can't help but wonder if the Contra County sheriffs department would have been able to recognize this man for the insane, dangerous monster he is if they had been fully present.

Contra Costa County sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry was defensive about not going into the backyard of this dump and checking around, but he's wrong about no one knowing they were out there anyway. A neighbor called 911 and reported it in 2006.

This article in the Mercury News offers more details of how ill prepared the county is when dealing with registered sex offenders. From the news article:

The Megan's Law (registered offenders) database has grown by about three percent since December, to more than 65,000 names of those living in California communities. For law enforcement, the numbers are overwhelming, said Contra Costa County sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry. He said about 1,700 registered sex offenders now live in the county — up nearly 50 percent in a decade. About 350 live in unincorporated pockets countywide.

"That's 349 more than detectives I have to monitor these people," said Terry. "And as dangerous as these people are, for every one of them that's been through the criminal justice system, there's a handful that are just as dangerous and haven't been caught yet. We're inundated with sexual assault cases."

A task force including the sheriff's office and local police visited Garrido's house during a July 2008 sweep to check on compliance — that he lived where he said he did, said Terry. They entered the house and walked through, noticed nothing unusual and left.

"There was no evidence to support any type of foul pay or elicit activity that would violate his position as a (Megan's Law) registrant," he said. "Did we go into his backyard and climb the 8-foot wall into the compound that for 17 years nobody knew he was using? No, we did not."

I spent 80 seconds looking up Philip Garrido's name in the California sexual offender database and found him. Easily. Why didn't the officer doing follow up to the 911 call? Why didn't he call Garrido's probation officer?

I'll tell you what that county sheriffs office did accomplish that year.

That same year, the Contra Costa country sheriff department assisted the feds in conducting a four month wiretap surveillance of suspected drug-dealers. They conducted subsequent raids in March of 2006. This is the same year they fielded that call from Garrido's neighbor, yet the deputy responding to child endangerment didn't look up Garrido in the sexual offender database. And didn't go into the backyard.

How much time and money did the 2006 raid consume? Could those resources have been better used in this community? Some may think not. Some folks may think arresting drug dealers will keep us safer.

The article reports the arrest of mainly street-level, drug-dealing suspects, prominent gang suspects and either subordinates or street-level drug-dealing suspects. And do you know what those arrests created? Job openings. In the next 12 or 18 months you'll read about another fantastical drug bust that's really cleaned up the place.

"All of the violence we've seen in North Richmond lately, we want it to end," said Contra Costa sheriff's Lt. Kitty Parker of the investigation and raid. "The violence is there because of the drugs. Everything stems from the drugs."

No it doesn't, Lt. Parker. Drugs aren’t the problem. Our drug policy is.

Sure, sometimes druggies do violent things, but a majority of our community violence is due to petty thugs fighting over the unregulated drug market. Just like during alcohol prohibition. When the St. Valentines day massacre went down, nobody said, “lets keep chasing these guys” They said, this is crazy. Kid are dying from bath tub gin, we’re spending too much money fighting these criminals and this whole idea of keeping folks from drinking isn’t working.

They re-legalized and regulated alcohol. They took back their streets. Now those guys selling alcohol settle differences in court, not on the streets with guns. The Budweiser driver and Petron delivery driver never shoot at each other to gain control of a neighborhood.

It's too late for Jaycee to have been saved sooner than later. But we can refocus our (limited) law enforcement resources into area's that will actually keep communities safer.

Legalize and regulate drugs. All of them.