Police continue to seek answers to how a convicted sexual predator was able to kidnap a young girl and keep her, along with the two children she bore him, in captivity for nearly two decades.
I honestly have compassion for Sheriff Warren Rupf and the department he oversees. This Contra Costa sheriffs department in the San Francisco Bay area is going to have some tough questions to answer in the upcoming weeks.
In the past few years, authorities had several chances to uncover the ramshackle backyard compound where Dugard and her children were kept, a missed opportunity that Sheriff Warren Rupf said was unacceptable. He also promised changes.
In 2006 a neighbor called 911 to report suspicious circumstances involving young children in the home's backyard, and said Garrido was psychotic and had a sex addiction. The deputy spent about 30 minutes interviewing Garrido on the front porch and left after warning him that people living outdoors on the property could be a code violation.
"We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation," Rupf said. "I cannot change the course of events but we are beating ourselves up over this." Rupf added, "I offer my apologies to the victims and accept responsibility for having missed a chance to rescue Jaycee."
Sheriff Warren attributed the shortcoming to the deputy's lack of ready access to a database containing information about sex offenders in the county.
"We should have been inquisitive, more curious, and turned over a rock or two," Rupf said. "There are no excuses."
If I lived in California, I would want to know why the Costa County Sherifs department didn’t use their new armored vehicle, that can rescue hostages and withstand snipers' bullets, to help rescue Jaycee Dugan.
The Lenco BearCat -- purchased with a federal Homeland Security grant of $243,000 -- can detect poisonous gases, travels as fast as 85 mph and has gunports for 10 rifles. While the intent of the BearCat purchase is to better prepare deputies for response to a terrorist attack, the county reports that the vehicle will probably be used more for protecting hostages, driving through gunfire and raiding drug houses.
"When the funny money comes in from the federal government, it's presented in a way that a sheriff would be anti-patriotic not to take it," said former San Jose police Chief Joseph McNamara, a criminal justice expert at Stanford's Hoover Institution. "If we were talking about getting this armored car versus after-school programs for kids, the armored car wouldn't compete well."
But let's get back to Jaycee Dugard, who didn't attend school ever after being kidnapped in 1991, but was instead raped repeatedly by Garrido and held captive for 18 years.
Miss Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped. She was waiting at a bus stop near her stepfather who watched in horror as she was snatched up and driven away in a car. He chased on a bicycle but was unable to catch up. Authorities have been unable to locate her until August 26, when she 58 year old Phillip Garrido came into his parole agent's office in the San Francisco Bay area and turned himself in.
Why did Garrido turn himself in?
Two members of the UC Berkeley police force, Lisa Campbell and Ally Jacobs interacted with Garrido and both of his “daughters” when he came to inquire about holding a campus event related to a group called "God's Desire." His insane rantings and the fearful demeanor of the girls alarmed the two women, so Jacobs ran a background check and discovered he was a registered sex offender on federal parole for kidnapping and rape. After a second meeting with Garrido the next day, she called his parole officer in Concord, who seemed surprised to hear about the girls. He asserted Garrido didn’t have any daughters.
From what I can glean from news reports, that parole officer did nothing more than request Garrido come into his office. That’s when this lunatic showed up with his wife, Miss. Dugard and her daughters, and turned himself in.
Jacobs called her ability to assess the situation a combination of police intuition combined with mothers intuition.
(Let me have interrupt this Drug Reform Blog to emphasis that Mothers Intuition combined with Police Skills = Safer Children. These two women solved a kidnapping case that police haven’t been able to solve for 18 years—despite continued contact with Garrido.)
Garrido confessed to the kidnapping and was arrested along with his wife. Authorities allege Miss. Dugard was held as a prisoner in the backyard encampment all these years and gave birth to two daughters, ages 11 and 15, who were fathered by Phillip Garrido.
In addition to the 911 call in 2006, less than a year ago a task force composed of East Contra County police agencies, spearheaded by the Sheriff's Office, conducted a sweep of registered sex offenders in July 2008 to confirm they were living at the address they gave authorities. The visits included a stop at Garrido's home but the responding officer wasn’t aware that he was a registered sex offender. He left after talking with Garrido in front of the house.
Garrido's parole agent also made visits to the Antioch home but never saw Dugard or her children.
Let me state something clearly here: Law Enforcers aren't to blame for this. Our laws are. Until we end the drug war by legalizing and regulating drugs as we do tobacco and alcohol, our police will have to continue to enforce the laws. They will continue to have time and funds diverted to a war we cannot, are are not, winning.
In fact, legalizing and regulating drugs will eliminate the ongoing meth problem that takes up so much time and resources of Costa County law enforcers. California accounts for 85 percent of total U.S. methamphetamine production and Contra Costa County has become a hotbed of meth production in Northern California, with more than 100 labs seized each year since 1998.
LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition work to educate the public about the failure of our $69 billion-a-year War on Drugs. They also say that law enforcers want to be able to do their sworn duty of keeping society safe instead of enforcing this failed policy.
Phillip Garrido is clearly a menace to society.
In 1977 Garrido was sentenced for a sex attack on a 25-year-old casino worker and 50 years for kidnapping her. He was convicted and served 10 years of a 50 year sentence for kidnapping in a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He was then transferred to a Nevada prison where he served another seven months of a concurrent five-years-to life sentence for sexual assault. He was granted parole in 1988, three years before Miss Dugard vanished.
What do you think that Costa County officer would have done, what actions do you think the county sheriffs department or the parole officer would have taken if the Garridos neighbor had reported to say that a convicted sex offender was growing marijuana in his back yard?
The FBI reports in its Uniform Crime Reporting Program that Contra Costa county completed 6,436 total drug violation arrests out of 34, 377 arrests in 2000. The number for sex offenses? 265. Offenses against family and child: eight.
California citizens should all be asking these questions of the Contra Costa sheriff's department: What's the ratio of narcotics officers compared to those assigned to the sexual assault unit -- and what hours do they work? Or the child abuse unit? Is there a child abuse unit? What are the budgets for these units? What is the budget for the narcotics unit? How many narcotics raids did the department conduct while Miss Dugan was being raped and help prisoner by Phillip Garrido?
One quick internet search produces an article reporting that on Mar. 15 of 2006--the same year the neighbors reported children living in Garridos backyard--authorities completed a four-month wiretap surveillance of prominent North Richmond drug-dealing suspects with a massive raid of at least 12 homes in Contra Costa and Solano counties.
To me, is a misappropriation of funding. To me, this is skewed police priorities.
I can assure you of this—had that neighbor called the Sheriffs department to report Garrido was growing marijuana or cooking meth, those officers would have gone further than the front porch.
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