All posts by Marc Klaas

I am President of the KlaasKids Foundation and BeyondMissing, Inc. Both organizations are 501(c)(3) public benefit non profit organizations.

Who is Little Maria?

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Maria 1On October 16, 2013, during a drug and weapons raid, a little blond, blue eyed girl who goes by the name of Maria was found living in the squalor of a subsidized Gypsy encampment in central Greece. A local prosecutor on the scene became suspicious because the little girl, thought to be five or six-years-old, did not resemble her parents or siblings. A subsequent DNA test has determined that she is not related to other family members. The parents, who are also suspected of welfare fraud, have been arrested. They have provided conflicting reports on how Maria ended up in their custody. Maria has been placed with charity that is trying to locate her biological parents.

Parents

It is thought that there are upwards of 270,000 human trafficking victims living in the European Union at a given time. However, according to the latest data, a total of only 5,535 human trafficking victims were identified in the 24-European Union member states in 2010. 80% of victims were female and 17% were girls under the age of eighteen. The majority (around 62 %), of the victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, around 25 % for labor exploitation and around 14 % for the category “other”. Female victims have the largest share of victims classified under other forms of exploitation such as forced begging, selling of children etc., and there has been a gradual increase in the number of male victims across the three years. A clear majority (61 %) of the identified and presumed victims come from EU Member States.

Because the Greek birth registration system is antiquated welfare fraud is rampant. The couple who claimed to be Maria’s parents claim benefits totaling about $3,200/month for a total of 14-children, only four of whom have been identified. Various court records reveal that the woman was giving birth every four months during one period of time.Parents 2

Maria’s Gypsy parents clearly have something to hide. The Gypsy couple say that they love Maria and are raising her as one of their own children, video suggests that she may have been singled out for exploitation. Initially they said that Maria had been given to them by her biological mother shortly after giving birth, but that story has changed repeatedly since they have been in custody.

Although this case is moving backwards in that the missing child was discovered before she was knowingly reported missing, it has already given hope to other missing child families. Madeline McCann’s parents have said that their hopes of being reunited with their daughter is reinvigorated by the discovery of little Maria. Similar sentiments have been published by the parents of other missing children.Maria 2

There is a good chance that Maria will never be reunited with her biological family. If that occurs, let us hope that wherever she ends up, it is with a loving family who will give her the opportunities experience and love life that she never would have found in the squalor of the Gypsy village.

Posted in Human Trafficking, international abduction | Tagged | 2 Comments on Who is Little Maria?

Polly Klaas – Jan. 3, 1981 – Oct. 1, 1993

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1.5 yr & Dad on Merry Go Round

In 1993, 868,345 persons were reported missing in the United States of America. I wish to write about, remember, and honor one of them. 

1993 sometimes seems so near that I can reach out and grab it, and sometimes so distant that the details are blurred memories, but since very few people who were touched by her plight ever met Polly, I will do my best to tell you about her. She was a very pretty, smart, cheerful and engaging girl who was just beginning to realize life’s potential. She was a skilled actor who could nail the first read through of a script. She could ride a bike, had mastered swimming and wanted me to teach her how to play baseball, so that she could ‘play with the boys.’ On Sunday evenings I enjoyed sitting on the couch with Polly on one side and Violet on the other. Polly and I would cackle at Homer and Bart Simpson’s mindless antics while Violet looked at us quizzically and asked what was so funny? Even in life we thought of Polly as an old soul because of the depth of her compassion and capacity for love. She was the kind of a girl who would make her presence known when she entered the room. When she left it would be with an unspoken, “Hey, remember me!” 

Polly lived with her mom in Petaluma, but we had joint custody. She would spend 2-days a week with Violet and me, take vacations and spend most Holiday’s with us. We talked on the phone almost every night. The last time we spoke was on October 1. She was very enthusiastic about the slumber party she was hosting for her girlfriends. Before we hung up I told her that I loved her. “I love you too Daddy,” she replied. 

If Polly were kidnapped in 2013 instead of 1993, things would have played out very differently. In 1993, when the authorities issued an APB with the stipulation that Polly’s kidnapping was “Not for press release,” that led to a series of systematic failures that might have cost Polly her life. Two Sheriff’s deputies that confronted the killer about an hour after she was kidnapped had no idea who they were dealing with and sent him on his way instead of arresting him on the spot. Today we have inter-agency cooperation, written protocols, computer system interoperability, and a much greater awareness of the issue. The two deputies who helped a killer pull his car out of a ditch would have been informed and might have been able to solve the case much more quickly. Also, there is no doubt in my mind that today the killer would be a third striker which means that he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to kidnap, rape and kill because he would already be incarcerated. We simply don’t revolve recidivist offenders through the turnstile as quickly as we did in 1993. Finally, today we have the Amber Alert which was originally designed for this type of scenario. Unfortunately, as it became institutionalized its effectiveness was substantially diminished. 

Ironically, I don’t know how many of those changes would have occurred if it had not been for Polly. She had become the face of American victimization as quickly as her killer had become the face of crime in America. She was the symbol, first of hope and then of loss. She was the impetus, but certainly not the inspiration, for California’s hugely successful 3-strikes law. The FBI wrote the first predatory abduction protocol based on her crime, she was the Internet’s first missing child, and all future community responses and volunteer search efforts have been measured against Petaluma’s heroic effort. 

I think that the work the KlaasKids Foundation has done on Polly’s behalf has had an influence on our cause. One of the reasons that Polly’s situation received so much attention is because my family and I were unrelenting in our desire to bring her home alive. Prior to Polly’s kidnapping there had been a rash of predatory abductions in the Bay Area. They would all begin with a roar and end shortly thereafter in a whimper. We embraced the media as partners, not adversaries and did everything that we could to keep her story alive, because we knew that if the media went home people would stop caring. If the people stopped caring there would come a time when law enforcement would stop investigating. I feared that we would join the ranks of those caught in the limbo of “not knowing”. 

Also, throughout the past 20-years KlaasKids has been there for the families of the missing. We are invested in preventing future abductions, but are also ready to respond if a child is missing. To date, KlaasKids SAR has helped 866-families of missing children throughout the United States, including numerous high profile abduction cases. We’ve conducted 273 searches for missing persons around the country; trained over 1100 professional search and rescue volunteers; and assisted in the recovery of 39 women and children involved in sex trafficking throughout the United States. 

With BeyondMissing our flyer creation and distribution technology was utilized by registered law enforcement in 35 states in the search for 340 abducted/missing children. BeyondMissing tools had a 95% recovery rate and to date registered users have recovered 323 children. BeyondMissing was utilized by law enforcement to issue 174 Amber Alerts, 56 Local Amber Alerts, 16 Abduction Alerts and 94 Missing Child Alerts. Collectively, BeyondMissing has distribution 1,231,500 emails, 34,400 text messages and initiated distribution to 1,721,800 faxes to “targeted” recipients on behalf of law enforcement. The BeyondMissing Parent Flyer Tool has been accessed and utilized over 3,560 times by families and organizations searching for a missing child. 

Our community outreach program, the Print-A-Thon, has enabled us to travel to more than 40-states where we have interacted with young families, fingerprinted/photographed and provided comprehensive suites of child safety materials to more than 1,000,000 children without ever charging a family for the service or database personal or private information. 

We were front line soldiers in the effort to provide interoperability between government computer systems, truth-in-sentencing, Megan’s Law, the Adam Walsh Act and prevention funding for at risk youth so that they would have options in life beyond drugs and crime. We did not help to get 3-strikes passed, but have defended it passionately in the years since. During the last election cycle we took a leadership role in Prop.35, which targets human traffickers, provides much needed services for victims of human trafficking and passed by a greater margin than any other ballot initiative in California history. 

Our website, KlaasKids.org is nearing the completion of a major overhaul that will make our suite of online services even more powerful, vibrant and excellent than they already are. Our popular comparative analysis of each state’s Megan’s Law has been updated and redesigned with the latest data. 

We believe that the future of child safety exists in technology. There are documented cases of FB & Twitter having been instrumental in the recovery of missing kids.  There is thousands of missing child pages on FB & numerous communities dedicated to recovering the missing. Each of those pages provides multiple pictures, video, links to articles, & testimonials thereby making organizations like NCMEC virtually obsolete as far as the public is concerned. 

Smart phone alert apps like PGA can bypass government bureaucracy and distribute missing child information in minutes instead of hours. Free child friendly web browsers like Cocoon for KlaasKids protects children from rogue marketers and other dangers that exist online. We anticipate that GPS technology is on the cusp of great changes that will be protective of kids. Database technology and computer system interoperability are fully realized concepts. Technology’s dream is fast catching up to technology’s reality and KlaasKids will continue to explore how it can prevent, respond to and recover child abduction. 

Unlike other, much better funded child locater NPO’s the KlaasKids Foundation staff and volunteers do more than sit behind our desks answering phones and posting flyers on our website. We innovate, we advocate, we search, we educate, and we take a stand where others remain silent. 

Late at night on October 1, 1993, when Polly was being forced into the night at knifepoint, under the threat of death she said, “Please don’t hurt my mother and sister.” At that moment in time she was the bravest little girl in the world. She remains our beacon, our inspiration and the reason that we will continue to focus on the fight for America’s children until we draw our last breath.

Posted in Polly Klaas | 11 Comments on Polly Klaas – Jan. 3, 1981 – Oct. 1, 1993

The Coward’s Way Out

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23333412_BG2It’s a beautiful day in America. Ariel Castro is dead. According to published reports the Cleveland kidnapper/rapist hanged himself with a bed sheet from his prison cell inside the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. He was under protective custody which mandated that he be segregated from the general population and that prison personnel check on him at least once every thirty-minutes. When prison guards were unable to revive him he was transferred to the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center where he was declared dead at 10:52 p.m.

Given that he was under protective custody he obviously picked his moment very carefully. The irony is that he couldn’t take a month in captivity while he held those women in captivity for more than a decade. “These degenerate molesters are cowards,” Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said, “This man couldn’t take, for even a month, a small portion of what he had dished out for more than a decade.”

However, there are those who suggest that something more sinister was afoot. Castro’s lawyer alluded to the possibility of a conspiracy surrounding Castro’s death and said that at the very least he should have been on suicide watch. I’m personally offended that anyone would try to frame Castro as a victim. He is the bad guy in this. The women he victimized, the prison personnel, and those charged with overseeing him are the good guys. Only a defense lawyer would suggest that those entrusted to protect public safety and ensure our health and well-being would scheme to murder a worthless piece of crap like Castro. To propose that somebody has to make it their life’s work to sit and watch Castro every minute for the next several decades to ensure that he doesn’t harm himself is a total absurdity. Sometimes justice plays out in strange ways and I think that’s exactly what happened here.

In the long run his victims will realize that they are better off now that he is dead. Let me give you my personal experience. The goon that murdered my daughter told a psychiatrist in the late 1970’s that he likes to masturbate twice daily while thinking of his past victims. That tells me that my daughter is being re-victimized every day that this character is alive. Now, similarly during his rambling statement at his sentencing hearing on August 1, which constituted a re-victimization, Castro talked about practicing the art of masturbation. So there is no doubt in my mind that Ariel Castro was continually and constantly re-victimizing the three-women that he had held as prisoners for more than a decade. They deserve better than that: much better.

As long as these monsters are alive they have influence over their victims. Castro’s rambling statement at his sentencing was a re-victimization. His lawyer’s musing upon his death is a re-victimization. They were under his total and complete control for more than a decade. Then they escaped. Last night he died. Now he can no longer influence their lives. That weight has been lifted from their shoulders.

Ariel Castro did suffer in prison for the rest of his life; it just turned out to be a much shorter life than anybody really expected.

Posted in Ariel Castro | 2 Comments on The Coward’s Way Out

How the Amber Alert Should Work

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Amber Alert revI couldn’t be happier that Hannah Anderson was rescued and that the Amber Alert was effective in her case. Unfortunately, too many deserving kids fall through the cracks through carved in stone criteria, time delays or other bureaucratic nonsense. I have listed my problems with the Amber Alert and easy fix solutions. The problem is that the architects of the system, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are more concerned with control than efficiency than saving children. Therefore I doubt that my criticisms will be heard.

  1. Statewide alerts are mindless. States have borders, but kidnappers do not. In the Anderson kidnapping I received an Amber Alert, yet I live 500 miles away from the crime scene, while people in Yuma, AZ did not receive the Amber Alert despite the fact that they live about 110 miles from the crime scene. I recommend a radius around the crime scene that is not bound by borders.
  2. The current iteration of the smart phone Amber Alert provides sketchy information and cannot be easily verified. Provide a link or other easy reference.
  3. Local authorities should be able to issue Amber Alerts within their jurisdiction. Kicking responsibility up the ladder to a State authority wastes time, results in filtered information and costs lives. Currently, it takes far too long to issue an Amber Alert and statistics clearly state that if a child is murdered as a result of a kidnapping, almost ¾ of those children will be dead within a 3-hour radius.
  4. Don’t alienate your audience. Issuing a bleating Amber Alert in the dead of night or early hours of the morning will cause people to opt out of the service. A better approach would be to depend upon radio and highway signs in the wee hours to notify those individuals that are on the roadways. Radio is and always has been the primary delivery system for motorists, and motorists are the ones who need to know.
  5. Fast food outlets, service stations, truck stops, and highway motels should be notified with graphic/text Amber Alert information.
  6. Don’t be too strict with the Amber Alert criteria. My Polly, Jessica Lunsford, Adam Walsh, Elizabeth Smart wouldn’t qualify under the current system.
  7. Because of the strict criteria Amber Alert is most useful in family abductions. Predators don’t leave vehicle or license plate information.
Posted in amber alert, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children | Tagged | 6 Comments on How the Amber Alert Should Work

Leave Hannah Anderson Alone

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Hannah and her friends

Hannah and her friends

Back off of this child!

Sixteen-year-old Hannah Anderson has experienced a week that most people cannot even imagine. A close family friend betrayed her family in the worst way possible. Her mother and eight-year-old brother Ethan were tortured, murdered and torched on August 4. She was kidnapped and held in captivity for a week by a sadistic psychopath. Finally, on Saturday, August 10, her ordeal ended when her kidnapper was shot and killed before her eyes in Idaho’s Cascade Mountains. Now she is the subject of reckless finger pointing and unfounded speculation. It is never acceptable to blame the victim, and all who do so should be ashamed of themselves.

I have experienced tragedy, and I sat there numb and stoic as family and friends wept upon learning that my daughter Polly was dead back in 1993. I will never forget wondering what was wrong with me as my family returned to Sausalito from Petaluma in a slow grief stricken caravan on the chilly evening of December 4, 1993. It was only hours later that the enormity of my loss finally registered. I exploded in a violent rage. I cursed God, the killer, and even myself for not saving my child. Sometimes, the mind and the heart are not so well synchronized. Sometimes, your understanding belies your emotions. Sometimes, your emotions reject a truth simply because that truth is too painful, too raw, and too devastating to accept.

Hannah has taken heat for engaging social media. People wonder what she was thinking, and why she wasn’t steeped in grief. I took those questions to my friend Alicia Kozakiewicz. In 2002, when she was thirteen-years-old an online predator lured Alicia into his clutches. Four days later she was rescued by the FBI. Now she is a very effective child safety advocate.

Alicia explained that Hannah’s emergence demonstrates how important social media is to kids. Hannah has grown up with social media, she feels very comfortable sharing with people online because it is what kids do. Right now Hannah is emotionally needy, and is seeking comfort and support. She is confused, in shock, and not fully comprehending her situation. Social media, chatting with her peeps, gives her the validation that is otherwise scarce right now. Hannah’s online actions are ill advised, but they are illustrative of child who needs guidance and help, not criticism, innuendo, and condemnation.

It is easy to sit in front of a television set in the comfort of your home, protected from the outside world and armchair-quarterback the issues of the day. However, that doesn’t provide you with insight or secret knowledge. Jim DiMaggio is the criminal in this incident. If you want to point fingers and play the blame game, he is the object of your attention, not his sixteen-year-old victim.  She deserves better than that. Send Hannah your hopes, prayers and good wishes: not your criticism, unfounded speculation and finger pointing.

Posted in Hannah Anderson, missing children, social networking | 14 Comments on Leave Hannah Anderson Alone

Quit Whining about the WEA Amber Alert

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Hannah Anderson-amber-alertThere has been much criticism about the Amber Alert issued for 16-year-old Hannah and her 8-year-old brother Ethan Anderson. The roll out was an abysmal, screeching mess, which is unfortunate because It has fantastic potential. They simply need to be judicious in the way that an Amber Alert is distributed. Violet and I received the Amber Alert at about 10:45 on Monday evening, yet we live 500 miles from where the crime occurred. There was limited information and no photo’s included in the Alert. We were unable to click on the alert for more details, and could not immediately find anything online. Some people received it more than once throughout the night, and that is going to cause people to opt out of the program.

People have to quit whining and complaining about this on social media, because it is very simple to opt out of receiving WEA Amber Alerts. However, the better solution is for those responsible for issuing the alert, because there are definite steps to maximize and improve the system. It is an absurdist policy to do a statewide distribution when you should be doing a geographically based distribution. Since the majority of abductions are local crimes, the first distribution should be based on a 100-150 mile radial distribution from the crime scene. I received the Alert 500 miles away, but residents of Yuma, AZ did not and they are barely 100 miles away from where Hannah was kidnapped. In other words, you want to put the crime scene in the middle of the distribution, because the kidnapper could theoretically be headed in any direction. Kidnapping is not bound by borders, and neither should Amber Alerts.

They need to include people in the system by being smart, not alienate them by being stupid. Most people want to help, but they don’t want to be unnecessarily bothered. Being woken up multiple times throughout the night by a screeching Amber Alerts will result in large numbers of people opting out of the program. Those in charge say that they want to enlist late night and early morning drivers to be on the lookout for the suspect vehicle. That can be accomplished by simply utilizing radio stations and highway signs. After all, that is where the Amber Alert came from in the first place.

Posted in amber alert | Tagged | 2 Comments on Quit Whining about the WEA Amber Alert

Castro’s Speech Full of “Empty Words”

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175273297I was physically shaken by Ariel Castro’s testimony because it returned me to a time seventeen years ago when I sat in a courtroom and listened to another remorseless pervert, my daughter Polly’s killer, excuse and justify his own evil deeds. I am stunned that these guys have a right to speak in open court. Their self-serving lies are nothing more than delusional attempts to cast themselves as victims as they pitifully attempt to redefine unspeakable crimes against innocent and vulnerable victims, but the empty words of a coward cannot erase a lifetime of violence and perversion.

When Castro turned and stared at Michelle Knight, he should have been silenced and removed from the courtroom. Instead, his continued talking as he watched her.  There were enough lawyers in the courtroom that somebody should have objected. Nobody did. His attempt to intimidate Michelle fell flat when he, and not she, looked …http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/08/02/ariel-castro-michelle-knight-victim-perpetrator-courtroom

Posted in Ariel Castro, missing adult, missing children | %

Good News, Bad News!

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CastroAriel Castro has accepted a plea deal for the horrific crimes he committed against Amanda Berry, Gina De Jesus, and Michelle Knight. He must spend the rest of his life plus one-thousand years in a penitentiary. The extra time is to be applied consecutively, meaning that clock doesn’t even start ticking until he dies. Under the deal, he agreed to plead guilty to 937 felony counts. He will not stand trial and he will not face the death penalty. He will never receive a parole hearing and will die in prison, or as the Cuyahoga County prosecutor said, “He’s never coming out except nailed in a box or in an ashcan”.

We must hope that he is housed under the worst conditions possible and that his remaining years are hopeless, lonely, and isolated. He is such a dangerous criminal and such a despicable human being that he should have severely limited access to the outside world. Ariel Castro is the worst kind of sexual predator: it is as if he were regurgitated from the bowels of Hell, and the sooner he returns the better off we all will be.

A statement issued through the law firm that is representing the victims said that, “Amanda, Gina, and Michelle are relieved by today’s plea. They are satisfied by this resolution to the case, and are looking forward to having these legal proceeding draw to a final close in the near future.” They must take great relief from the fact that Castro will never have another opportunity to harm an innocent human being.

I’m sure the victims are relieved that they have been spared from having to testify against Castro in court, but they still have the option of making victim impact statements at his sentencing hearing on August 1. Castro had too much influence over their lives for far too long, so I would not be surprised if they decline the opportunity.

As society collectively sighs in relief that a twisted pervert like Castro in finally being removed from the system, we gasp in disbelief to find that Vermont is releasing a pedophile so dangerous that the Vermont Department of Corrections department is warning citizens to keep a keen eye on blond haired, blue eyed boys between 12-13 years old.

Timothy Szad

Timothy Szad

In 2001, 40-year-old Timothy Szad was convicted in a sexual assault against a 13-year-old boy. He pled guilty to grabbing the boy, who was fishing on the bank of the Williams River, carrying him across the river, handcuffing him to a tree and sexually assaulting him twice. He was facing life in prison but took a plea deal. Unlike several other states Vermont does not have a Civil Commitment Law that allows sex offenders who are considered to be a continued threat to society to be maintained in custody once they have finished their prison sentence, so they have no option other than to release him. However, they are so convinced that he is a continuing threat that the Vermont Department of Corrections has warned the public that Szad would most likely target “male strangers between the ages of 12 and 13, in particular those with blond hair and blue eyes.”

Vermont ACLU executive director Allen Gilbert believes that the public simply needs to accept that sex offenders like Szad get out of prison when they complete their sentences. “We live in a society that operates by the rule of law and courts have determined the appropriate sentence for him, he’s served his sentence, and now he’s getting out.” He doesn’t care that the constitutionality of Civil Commitment Laws has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court. Neither does State Rep. Alice Emmons, a Springfield lawmaker who chairs the House committee that oversees Vermont’s prisons. She too opposes civil commitment laws. “You’re holding someone who has not committed a (new) crime. Do we as a society in Vermont want to do that?” she asked.

No, Mr. Gilbert and Ms. Emmons apparently prefer another approach. The residents of the city where Szad was to be released became so incensed and vocal that the home that was going to house him rescinded the offer. Instead, he will be released to an undisclosed location in California. I live in California and am incensed that Vermont has chosen to export their 6′ 5″, 255 lb. pervert to California where he can prey on our sons.

State hospitals have been seeking a cure, or even a viable way to control, sexual predators for decades to no avail. Here is what’s clear: When pedophiles and psychopaths have been identified, we need to prosecute and lock them up as well as have a means of maintaining them in confinement until they no longer pose a threat to society. That can mean life in prison, or barring that states need a civil commitment law that ensures that dangerous sexual predators are maintained in a restricted environment. Sending home grown perverts across the country is not an answer.

The primary duty of government is public safety, not ensuring that an incurable predator gets a second or third chance because the ultimate endgame of that strategy is continued victimization.

If you are a California resident and believe that an injustice has been done, please contact Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. His phone number is (802) 828-3333.

Posted in Civil Commitment Laws, pedophile, psychopath | Tagged | 9 Comments on Good News, Bad News!

AB 109: The Release of More Inmates Like Throwing Gas on a Fire!

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By Michael Rushford

inmates-2009-APAs California continues to experience an increasing number of serious crimes committed by habitual criminals free from prison under Realignment (AB 109) a panel of federal judges has ordered Governor Brown to release another 9,600 inmates by the end of this year.  This order has been appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court, which should delay any releases for several months, but the erosion of public safety under the Realignment law remains a real and growing threat to law-abiding Californians.

“If the inmate releases ordered by the federal court are upheld, it would be like throwing gasoline on an already serious fire,” said Michael Rushford, President of the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The Foundation has been monitoring the impact of Realignment on crime in California over the past 20 months.  A preliminary report from the FBI indicates that over the first full year under the new law’s requirement that criminals it defines as “low level” be kept in counties, crime rates have risen sharply.  The Foundation’s analysis of those reports is available here.

Statistics, however, don’t describe what the increased crime means in human terms.  Recent news reports from across California present the real picture.

Dustin Kinnear

Dustin Kinnear

Last month, 26-year-old Dustin Kinnear was arrested for the June 18 murder of 23-year-old tourist Christine Calderon in Hollywood.  Kinnear had been released from prison just 11 days prior.  ABC News in Hollywood reports that Kinnear had been arrested over 40 times prior to this attack, seven of those arrests stemming from assault with a deadly weapon.  Realignment does not classify assault with a deadly weapon as a serious or violent crime, which allowed Kinnear to be back on the streets the day he stabbed and killed Calderon.

Adrian Madrigal

Adrian Madrigal

On June 21, 62-year-old Napa retiree Don Buffington was stabbed to death in his home in what police believe was a burglary gone wrong.  The suspect, 24-year-old Adrian Madrigal, stabbed the victim multiple times in the torso, and then proceeded to steal jewelry from the home along with the victim’s car.  An article in the Napa Valley Register reports that Madrigal has had several encounters with Napa police over the years and was on probation following a 2012 conviction of assault with a deadly weapon, which Realignment ranks as a non-serious crime.

Joseph Munoz, a murder suspect, was arrested on June 23 after his girlfriend Cassandra Deleon lead San Luis Obispo Sheriff deputies on a high speed chase.  CalCoast News reports that deputies had been searching for Munoz after naming him a person of interest in a fight that left a 25-year-old victim dead.  Deleon, was free on probation under Realignment when she led officers on the chase through Santa Maria.

A family moving cross-country stopped on June 23 at a Southern California motel for a night of rest.  The next morning they discovered that their moving truck, containing all of their belongings, was stolen.  Doug Saunders of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives arrested Andy Monreal (on the streets under Realignment) after finding roughly half of the stolen property in a storage unit.  Detectives also found a “significant amount of drugs” and a loaded firearm in the unit, and charged Monreal with additional felonies.  Monreal had warrants in two other California cities at the time of his arrest.

On June 27, police in Fontana were led on a high speed chase through residential neighborhoods in pursuit of Bryan Keddy, a man released under Realignment and wanted for dealing methamphetamine, which the new law defines as a non-serious crime.  Doug Saunders of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports that during the high speed pursuit, Keddy allegedly rammed his car into a police vehicle to avoid arrest, but was eventually caught and charged with evading officers and assault with a deadly weapon, which Realignment also defines as non-serious crimes.  This is the third time Keddy has been arrested for violating his Post-Release Community Supervision.

AB 109 offenders are not only a problem in our communities, they are threatening the safety in county jails across the state as well.  Richard K. De Atley of the Press-Enterprise reports that jails in Riverside County are experiencing a huge increase in violent attacks, citing a 100% increase in violent inmate-on-inmate attacks, and a 50% increase in attacks on jail staff since 2011.  Hardened criminals, that prior to Realignment would serve their sentences in state prison, are creating a dangerous atmosphere for other jail inmates and staff alike.

Two stories published in the July 7 Sacramento Bee reported on the 2012 increases in property crimes and the use of methamphetamine in the county, problems that most counties across California are experiencing.  The articles cited cuts in police budgets and the increased sophistication of the criminals as possible causes.  “What these stories overlooked is the fact that Realignment has defined habitual car thieves and drug dealers as ‘non-serious’ criminals who cannot be sent to prison no matter how many times they are convicted,” said Rushford.  “This law is encouraging increased crime,” he added.

Posted in AB 109, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation | 2 Comments on AB 109: The Release of More Inmates Like Throwing Gas on a Fire!