Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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I wrote a couple weeks ago about David Torrence, a Level 3 sex offender who managed to cut off his GPS tracking bracelet and vanish into thin air.

Well, now Torrence is back in custody:

A registered sex offender who lived under a bridge in Snohomish County for three days before cutting off his state issued GPS tracking ankle bracelet and disappearing has turned himself in to police in to police in Camden, Arkansas, according to the US Marshals Service.

Let's hope this time, he doesn't get out of jail...and even if he does, authorities find a better home than a bridge within walking distance of his victim.

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When David Torrence, a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, cut off his ankle bracelet tracking device and simply disappeared, the first questions asked were concerned with how the Department of Corrections tracks sex offenders.

To heed criticism, the DOC has since announced an improved system for such circumstances; now, if someone like Torrence disappears without a trace, the DOC will notify the offenders' previous victims that their assailant has escaped:

The 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.

Clap, clap, clap.

So this is the band-aid that the DOC has unleashed on a seriously flawed system? The fact that this wasn't already a policy is hard to believe. How hard is it to pick up the phone and let the victim know their attacker is on the loose?

"I'm glad they are trying to change their policy, but I can't believe they didn't do it before," said the woman [his victim]. "I never thought I would be living through this nightmare again. I just hope he goes to prison where he belongs."

I'm with her...especially because Torrence recently served a one-year sentence for failing to register as a sex offender. This guy obviously has no interest in following the law. 

The story gets weirder: Torrence was also not able to find housing, so the DOC permitted him to live under a bridge, just a few miles from where his victim lived. 

Under a bridge? Seriously? But don't worry, the person in charge of monitoring Torrence checks his GPS history "frequently." Phew! I was worried for a minute. Given Torrence's history, there are a few things that should never have happened (including allowing him to live under a bridge within walking distance of his victim, despite his propensity for dodging his "sex offender" status).

There's more to the new GPS system. While officials originally said that they had no idea how Torrence could have cut off the bracelet, we now know that four of the registered 90 GPS-using sex offenders have done so, and only two have been caught again.

It may be time to take a look at why situations like this are allowed to happen...instead of trying to deflect bad publicity by saying you'll do something in the future.

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I have long struggled with the fact that this country is more concerned with locking up petty drug dealers than child sex offenders, and this case - reported in the Times - only reaffirms my stance:

Police say Henry Richard Newell approached the boy who was with his father inside a supermarket in the 1400 block of Broadway on April 2. While the boy's father was a few feet away talking to a salesperson, Newell walked up to the boy and said, "Come with me," according to charging documents.

Later in the little blurb about the incident, we get a rundown of Newell's criminal past:

Newell, who is homeless, has a prior felony conviction in Oregon for raping an 11-year-old girl and is a registered sex offender, according to the documents. He is being held in King County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned May 7.

Does it get much worse than raping an 11-year-old?  Even if this gets the max sentence for "attempted luring," I'm guessing he's back out on the streets before too long. I know sex offenders have one of the lowest re-offend rates of all criminals, but it seems there are far too many cases of the justice system letting creeps like Newell slip through the cracks.

I'm sure his 11-year-old victim is still dealing with the horrendous crime he committed against her. This time, let's try to keep him where he belongs...behind bars.

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Staying in line with her credo of "keeping families safe," Governor Gregoire recently signed a bill that will allow police to collect DNA samples from a broader range of sex offenders. The bill, heavily influenced by the rape and murder of Zina Linnik (a Tacoma girl raped and murdered on July 4th of last year by a convicted sex offender), increases the number of sex-related crimes that can warrant forced DNA submission.

House Bill 2713 will add several misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor sex crimes to the list of offenses that require offenders to submit a sample of their DNA to the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab so it can be kept on file and compared to evidence found at other crime scenes. They include soliciting a prostitute and fourth-degree sexual assault.

Currently, only felony crimes require a DNA sample from criminals. The crime lab had 161,000 such samples on file as of last month and had analyzed and entered profiles of 97,000 of them into the state database.

The bill also plans to allow law enforcement to post the names of Level 1 sex offenders, the least likely to re-offend, on the statewide offender website if they fail to report their addresses to police.  Sex offenders may have the lowest re-offense rate of any almost criminal. but when one does fall off the wagon, the result is almost always shattered lives. Just look at the fact that the creep who did this to Linnik was connected to so many other unsolved crimes.

These are all ideas that, in my opinion, took way too long to get developed...but at least they're finally rearing their heads.  My only concern with this is how well the government will be able to maintain the systems they are proposing: the back-ups at state crime labs, who would be processing the DNA, have a notorious history of being extremely bogged down with excess work. How quickly can they get this database up and how well can they maintain it?

Guess we'll have to (gulp) put our faith in the state of Washington to handles this one right.