Vigilantes Use Online Sex Offender Map to Burn Down Wrong House
We've reported on plenty of tools and services designed to help you locate nearby sex offenders, all designed with the hopes of enabling parents to keep their children safe. Critics of these tools often say that they can make those sex offenders targets of retribution crimes by would-be vigilantes, and that seems to be just what was attempted in a case of arson in Evansville, Indiana.
There, a trailer full of equipment sitting in the driveway of a house was ignited by arsonists who also scribbled "GET OUT PERV" on the garage door. The vigilantes, however, seemed to have the wrong address. A man who was recently arrested for soliciting a police officer posing as a teenage girl lived a few houses down from where the crime took place.
So, wrong address, arsonists. Maybe you should use Google Maps the next time you're going to dish out some illegal and poorly spelled retribution?
From Kentucky.com
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Marie @ Feb 6th 2008 12:06AM
In Indiana a sex offender can often be an 18 yr old caught having sex with his 26 yr old girl friend. You never know what the real crime is sex offender includes violent rapists, pedophiles, sexual misconduct with a minor which is alway a consenting minor. Ever take a close look at how parents let their 14 yr olds dress? Unfortunately Indiana which has alway been my home is also home to some of the most ignorant idiots in the world
Whitey @ Feb 6th 2008 1:05AM
Finally a Hoosier that says it like it is. They are the most obstanant and ignorant fools in Indiana. It's the state we should give back to the Indians. They are the people that created John Dillinger.
Daniel Gaunt @ Feb 6th 2008 5:38AM
this shows the problem with megans/sarahs law. only the police need to know where sex offenders live and what they have done. If he was a threat he wouldn't still be free
http://freeextras.blogspot.com/
http://lifeorsomethingnotquitelikeit.blogspot.com/
willbgone @ Feb 6th 2008 6:43AM
Daniel Gaunt, you are an idiot to assume that just because he is free means that he is safe. Have you ever heard of the term REPEAT OFFENDER ? Unfortunately in this country, the legal system does not work as well as it should and many of thesedisgusting perverts are loose on the street. If you think he is "safe" why don't you let him move next to you and your kids?
dan avery @ Feb 6th 2008 7:44AM
to bad they did'nt get the right house.try,try,try again
Ordinary Radical @ Feb 6th 2008 11:51AM
willbgone - Why stop at sex offenders? (Which includes underage [both partners], consensual sex from over 20 years ago)
Why not provide a list of people convicted of other crimes such as:
Manslaughter?
Assault & Battery?
Arson?
Animal Cruelty?
DUI/DWI?
Speeding?
Where do we stop? I wouldn't particularly choose anyone convicted of these offenses to live near me, but after they serve their time, they should have as much freedom as you or I.
Why don't we just put a sign on our front lawn describing everything we've done wrong? Wait, how will we know who's who when we're away from home? How about a sign to wear? No, might be difficult to read. How about a symbol? Like a star or something sewn on your clothes? Now we're getting somewhere!!
jeff smith @ Feb 6th 2008 6:24PM
kinda like when the dea busts down your door and kills grandma looking for a roach but was off one block. oops sorry.
VoxFire @ Feb 6th 2008 7:47PM
Ordinary Radical -- even at the risk of sounding unpopular, or sounding like I'm "on the perverts' side," I have to agree with your post. Megan's Law-type transparency is a good idea in theory, especially since everyone can agree that it's important to protect children, but in practice the system doesn't always work so well. Where do we draw the line?
But Daniel Gaunt, gotta say you aren't correct either -- "If he was a threat he wouldn't still be free." Go tell the parents of Jessica Lunsford, Polly Klaas or any of the other children murdered by lifelong sexual predators that. It's pretty clear in those situations, and there are many examples all over the country, that the system failed and let clearly dangerous repeat offenders run free over and over. So while I normally would come down on the side of individual privacy and freedom, I can understand where the idea of total transparency came from with regard to sex offenders.
Either way, though, it doesn't excuse the vigilante behavior of the guys that set the fire... or their stupidity in getting the wrong house.
Onlygodcanjudge @ Feb 14th 2008 10:37PM
This is terrible. How can you say if a person is "safe" or not? You could be living next door to the friggin addams family and you would probably never know it.
Anyway, I'm a sex offender. I'm -not- into children, or little girls. I don't really even fit the profile the media would wish to portray me as. I made a mistake. A mistake I'd never again in my life do again. I served my time, but guess what, it is "necessary" for the law to monitor my behavior for the next 15 years and keep me registered in their database. WHY?! Because apparently some a**hole did something terrible to a kid and they just lump everyone into a category. It disgusts me when people do sick things to children, but "just to be safe" they have to keep me on parole for the next 15 years. Dude, I'm out of jail, I haven't committed anymore sex crimes, and I -will never- do it again.
But now I suffer because I'm being placed under a stigmata. A stereotype. A poison that plagues the mind of many to disillusion the people who are zealous about tragic events. Hell, this is the worst law ever. Maybe we should just revisit the Crusades and go out killing everyone who doesn't believe in God?
I think you get the idea.
and I think Radical is right.
If you're going to piss on people with a law, make it fair for all criminals to be equally pissed on.
Richard @ Apr 25th 2008 11:13AM
Hi, I'm one of the people you wish to murder because my name is on this list. A year after I left my girlfriend her 13 y/o sister said we had consensual sex. I was arrested but couldn't afford an attorney so they gave me a public defender.
The public defender looked at her picture and told me, "she was a pretty girl, big breasts, the jury will believe her so you should take a plea."
I said, "But I'm innocent, how can they put me away by just saying this happened?
He then said, "It's election time they don't need proof, if the jury don't get you the judge will."
I plead no contest, and they labeled me a predator, at the time-I had no clue what that meant. After watching my family go through the ridiculing, embarrassment, and shame all these years, after fighting in court for my child for five years to find myself homeless because of a new daycare center, jobless, beat down when I was locked up, after the vandalizing, the embarrassment, having all my rights, freedom, respect, and dignity being stripped away, I know now what that meant, and they wouldn't even let me out unless I said I was guilty of this crime.
I think I've learned the hard way what they done to me. They cursed me, it's the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep. When it slips my mind they make sure to remind me through the television, radio, newspaper, internet, and when that fails society picks up where they left off, through the looks from the neighbors, through my children from the neighborhood kids and at school and library. They remind me with the flyers and even with spraypaint. They remind through my jobs, relationships, and friends.
I know you don't believe my innocents no one ever does. That doesn't matter, the fact is, this can happen to you, it only took a little lie to make my family and I's life hell. Then the indignant anger and hate makes you crazy for awhile, It did me. I briefly thought about revenge on that girl, but the point is she was a child who simply told a lie, that is normal, and the curse will still be there, every day of my entire life. It is no longer her.
I tried to take this back to court, I gave a lawyer $1,500 cash and never heard anything back accept once, he said, "they won't allow it back in court", why? Lord only knows. He kept my money too.
I think this curse will only grow worse through time, so prepare yourself because it only takes a few words to destroy the life of you and your family. Where were you a year and a half ago from today can you prove it?
update:
It's been ten years for me and now the Walsh law came in effect. They changed my charge all together to keep me as the worst of the worst. I can't afford a lawyer to fight or fix any of it. What's the difference anyway 20 years or life, after 20 years the damage is life long anyway.
basicrich @ Apr 28th 2008 12:34AM
I’m not Anti-War, I am very militant and would front line a defense war, not this, this is a senseless invasion. From the beginning of this not one thing has added up except for deception, dishonesty, and fraud in our country. Our nation is becoming incredibly delusional, all the sudden the effects that christened America so great has become discarded. Our country was proud and magnificent because of our principles on life, liberty, and justice. Now that is all expendable and out-dated. Our own country is torturing people, utilizing covert prisons, attacking our freedom of speech, arresting American citizens without a warrant, prosecuting without a trial, what's more even without a lawyer. Our own country has invaded our rights to privacy, listening in on our phone calls, reading our e-mail, and they are monitoring our homes with satellites and through our cell phones even when they are turned off.
Our police were pulling people over if they had bumper stickers on their vehicle that sounded too "extremist". Is this America?
This is the war I see, it’s a war on our children and our rights! Sex Offenders are the other form of terrorist according to the government, because you don’t know who they are or where they are. So the government says to protect us and our children they will implant V Chips, not only in us, but in our cars, passports, identification, and run surveillance on our streets, homes, friends, and conversations. 96.5% of sex offenders are family members or friends to the victim, 97% are male, and only 3.5% of convicted sex offenders reoffend... Therefore the odds are YOU are more of a threat to commit a sex offense than a "sex offender". Mull over that for a moment. What will the next set of laws be? Will they treat us more like criminals than they currently are over of statistics like these? Will we again support them for the reasons or justifications of “good intentions”? In fact I have already seen the question here that leads to this, (We need to constantly ask "Legislators," why they continually focus new more restrictive legislation on ALL registered sex offenders, when they have the lowest recidivism rate, and legislators ignore the group committing "96.5% of new sex offenses," persons who have never before committed a sex offense?)
How can we prosecute people for life knowing how easy it is to be charged and convicted of a sex offense? Do you realize how many death row inmates have been found innocent due to D.N.A.? They convict sex offenders every day with merely ones word against anothers, today, a simple lie can wreck your life! How do V Chips, satellites, surveillance, and treating us like criminals stop our children from having a sexual encounter, protect our credit, or save us from terrorists that our government antagonizes?
We let them ignore Americans rights because we agree with the “good intentions” they sell us. Isn’t that what the Bible states the path to Hell is paved with? Did you know since that registry began the recidivism rate has increased, not declined, and the rate of sex offenses has not changed? There have however been thousands of vigilante attacks that have gotten an estimated 4000 innocent people hurt and even killed by mistaken identity or wrong addresses all together. In one case a pregnant woman was burned alive for nothing she had done. I have heard of “American justice” before, but it was in times when a guilty man unjustly went free. Not on a man who served HARD time in prison, not after the humiliation of refacing the public, and never after he was continually punished during and after his parole by the state. Now we harass or kill his family and friends as well? Is this what we have become? We now allow rights to be ignored?
Hitler used the media, fear mongering tactics, and created monsters to use as justifiable leverage against peoples rights, turned the people against one another, tortured people, held secret prisons, and reversed the impact of the word "WAR" till it was a good thing to happen to a nation. He too painted himself the protector and guardian. It makes me wonder if it is just a coincidence that Bushs’ grandfather worked for and with Hitler.
How are we keeping out terrorists if we can’t keep out drugs? How does opening our borders protect our borders? If this is what our country has become maybe the “terrorist” have us pegged and we deserve whatever we get. I for one do not need the government to protect my children and still hope we are a great and proud country because of our freedom, honor, fairness, and morals.
To those who feel our rights are not under attack:
The 14th century torture our government is practicing violates the Geneva Convention and international treaties. Your argument is that it is not “torture”, because our government says it is not torture unless it results in death or organ failure. By that definition it can be excruciating pain and can continue for years. Surveillance issued and imposed without probable cause or even with specific details, warrantless wiretaps-a violation of the 4th! Pervasive secrecy threatens the 1st! The detentions of American citizens designated as enemy combatants defy the 6th Amendment rights, and the interrogation techniques fall under cruel and unusual by the 8th Amendment. Have you heard of Habeas Corpus? Do you realize the impact this will have in our future, the newly expanded powers our future leaders inherit? Who says they will use them for good? Over 600,000 brave, truly patriotic men died for these rights that are being ignored. Anyone who would support breaking them is NOT patriotic Americans!!!
I try to support our troops, but I will NOT support our government or this invasion. That embedded propaganda that “they fight for our freedom” is misinterpreted. When you are being told that, they are talking about Iraqi freedom, not ours, and both of which would incidentally be lies. Iraq is far from free and that isn’t changing anytime soon. By free they mean democratic, and by that definition it is America who is under attack. Our freedom IS under attack, our constitution IS in peril. What we thought were solid constitutional principles have been altered or readapted if deemed an obstacle to there scheme. They have painted us pictures with dubious intelligence in order to make us supporters. They deplore, constraint, and attack dissent so we argue like this instead of speaking like real Americans who would challenge and protect our rights. What, because people were being hurt over there it justifies our bombing of thirty of their major cities killing all those innocents, after bombing them for the past 10 years?
Where would our country be if our personal wars were exploited by other countries? Example, over 600,000 people died in our war between the North and South. Should Russia or China have played a role in that war? I personally don’t think so.
Our government has been financing their wars for forty years! Why do you think they were so sure they would find the "weapons" over there? Maybe because our government gave them these things, but were surprised to find they were gone.
Think about what your facts are for supporting this war, are they even relevant to what is happening. Why did our government destroy their water supply, Are their civilians part of this war? All the innocent children and elderly, don’t they matter? I am not delusional, I look at the facts and the fact is if we are under attack it is our government who is attacking us. Persons convicted of a CRIME have a circle of people around them, their Zone of Associations, their family (often with children), friends, business associates, and their daily contacts. Finally, when rights of persons PREVIOUSLY convicted of a CRIME are diminished, it effects not only that person, but every person in their Zone of Associations -everyone suffers-, including their children! If government can diminish rights of -anyone or a group-, then it has the power to diminish rights of everyone! Someday, every door may knock!