So, What’s Going On Here?
This is kind of unusual, so I thought I'd point it out. Yesterday, I noticed a story about convicted sex offenders living under a bridge in Miami. (I did not blog about it at the time.) But the tone of the story is almost sympathetic to the felons. Today, I got wind of this item from the Orange County Register via the TalkLeft site (one I have linked in the past). Here's a bit from the first story:
MIAMI, April 7 (AP) — Five convicted sex offenders are living under a noisy highway bridge with the state’s grudging approval because an ordinance intended to keep predators away from children has made it nearly impossible for them to find housing.
The conditions are a consequence of laws prohibiting sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children gather. Miami-Dade County’s 2005 ordinance says sex offenders must live at least 2,500 feet from schools……
……The five committed crimes including sexual battery, molesting and abuse. Many of the offenses were against children.
The state moved the men under the bridge from their previous home — a lot next to a center for sexually abused children and close to a day care center — after they were unable to find housing they could afford that did not violate the sex offender ordinance.
Now from the OC Register:
While inmates beat John Derek Chamberlain to death, the senior deputy at the minimum-security barracks sat in the guard station watching television.
Deputy Kevin Taylor and his two partners did not notice the melee that lasted at least 20 minutes Oct. 5 at Theo Lacy Facility.
The deputies' failure to prevent the torture and killing of a man thought by jail inmates to be a child molester is at the center of an ongoing criminal inquiry.
Six inmates have been charged with murder. The one thought to be the ringleader – a drug addict with a prison record – has told Orange County sheriff's detectives that Taylor instigated the attack. Taylor and other jailers deny the allegation, which is under investigation by county prosecutors. No sheriff's employees have been charged……
…..After downing two beers, John Chamberlain, 41, couldn't hold it any longer. He was seen shortly before 5 p.m. urinating in the bushes outside the supermarket.
A responding deputy found Chamberlain inside his white Chevrolet Malibu. Next to him were two empty 24-ounce cans of Miller beer and two unopened cans. According to the police report, the computer technician said he lived across the street, sleeping on his boss's couch. He said he came to the parking lot "to relax."
The deputy searched the car and found 22 photos that police say Chamberlain admitted downloading from the Internet. The photos depicted what appeared to be children ages 6 to 10 engaged in sex acts with one another and with adults, the police report said.
Jeralyn at TalkLeft says the latter story is "disgusting". On one level, I have to agree with that - Chamberlain was a) not convicted of anything as yet and b) should never have been exposed to vigilante "justice" from inmates of the jail and c) should have been protected by the guards from b). That is their job as much as it is to keep prisoners in the jail. One thing that troubles me here is that there are suddenly two stories - going national - that appear to be trying to garner sympathy for some criminals who, frankly, don't deserve much sympathy. I think there is no form of life lower than one who preys on children - sorry if that offends anyone - oh, hell, no I'm not. I have a very good reason for thinking they are pretty well the lowest form of life on the planet. But it really bugs me to see them getting sympathetic treatment in the press (and I still think Chamberlain should not have been killed as he was, for any reason.) But I do wonder what, exactly, is going on when I start seeing sympathetic stories in close proximity, time-wise.
By Quilly Mammoth, Sunday, 8 April , 2007 @ 6:06 am
Check out this story about has-been Glamrocker Gary Glitter’s child sex conviction in Vietnam:
He’s asking to have his jail term reduced.
No where in the article does it mention that Glitter was arrested and convicted in the UK for possessing child porn nor does it mention that he was deported from Cambodia in 2003 ahead of a similar charge as that in Vietnam.
We get the idea that he is just some aging ex-rocker that was having a good time in one of Vietnam’s Red Light Districts.