Women Against Registry- Recently, this country has gone through months of listening to stories about George Zimmerman and the murder of a slain man and his scorned mistress, Jodi Arias . Where is the news coverage of the brutal stabbing murders of the Parkers? Why aren’t the perpetrators faces who forced their way in to Charles and Gretchen Parker’s home, not all over the air waves of ABC, NBC, MSNBC, HLN and other media networks?
Women Against Registry can tell you why. The why is because the Parker’s murders were not considered noteworthy of being publicized. The Parker’s lives do not matter because they were listed on the sex offender registry. Their lives do not matter to our Supreme Court, our judicial system or to the general public. Charles and Gretchen’s lives do not matter to reporters such as Dr. Drew, Anderson Cooper, and Nancy Grace, if they did, we would be hearing more about the horrific murders of Mr. and Mrs. Parker.
In lieu of the recent murders of Charles and Gretchen Parker, Women Against Registry demands that all citizens be afforded the right to privacy and protection. W.A.R. demands Governor Haley and the Governors of all states to remove the registries from public view and make them accessible to law enforcement only.
In 1991 Charles Parker was arrested and convicted of sexual misconduct. Nearly twenty two years later, Mr. Parker and his wife were stabbed to death and brutally murdered in their own home. The Parkers were slain by a man and a woman who went to their home with a story of a broken down vehicle. The couple entered their way into the home with a preconceived notion and intent to cause harm to Charles and Gretchen due to their address listed on a public registry. The couple admitted to law enforcement they found the Parker’s address and put their plan into motion .
In 2012, less than a year ago in Washington state, Ray Drum tracked and hunted down two registrants who were listed on the publicized sex offender registry. In the wake of the two homicides, Mr. Drum admitted to slaying both men and was on his way to the third victim when he was apprehended by law enforcement. Mr. Drum premeditated and set out to brutally murder as many victims as possible. In the wake of his self-proclaimed glory, he left behind an elderly father of one victim and a wife and two small toddlers or the second. Mr. Drum’s last statement to the court was, “It had to be done!” Mr. Drum’s printed copy of the public sex offender registry was found on the front seat of his car when apprehended by law enforcement.
In 2005, two men on the Washington state registry were shot and killed by a vigilante who posed as a police officer and was allowed into their homes. Investigators of that horrific murder, called it “one of the nation’s most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders.”
The public registry has been criticized by scholars who have extensive research and studies to prove that public registration does not protect anyone from harm. Thus, goes on to explain the registry causes more harm to innocent victims than it protects. Victims like Mr. and Mrs. Parker, family members, wives and dependent children of registrants who face vigilante crimes, public ostracism and harassment on a consistent basis.
W.A.R. calls for the removal of information on registrant families from public access due to it falling into the hands of individuals choosing to use it as a hit list.
Women Against Registry demands that all citizens in the United States be given the same civil and human rights as any other American.
Finally, W.A.R. asks for acknowledgement from South Carolina Governor Haley, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Dr. Drew, Pierce Morgan and the major media outlets . How many more children and families have to be slain or put through these types of tragedies to be heard?
Women Against Registry will keep asking WHY until we get an answer.
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Vicki Henry, Director
Women Against Registry – https://www.womenagainstregistry.org/
202.630.0345
Wow…our movement is growing.
OUTSTANDING …….they are getting the word out…making people taxpayers more aware registry is further punishment.
I want to cheer this. But I can’t. I can’t because they explicitly support SOR, if not open to the public (it would be to a limited degree anyway). Yes, making SOR public is even worse. But the basic idea of people who have completed their sentence, and those who have passed the test of rehabilitation that probation and parole is supposed to be, is flat out wrong. SOR IS probation and parole, it is every bit as much or even more than either, even if kept private and even if limited to no more than simply confirming annually where you are.
But WAR doesn’t see it that way, they are explicitly supporting the idea of SOR after successful completion of probation and parole and supposed final release to freedom. SOR is NOT freedom, even if it is not publicized. It is no more freedom than parolee, and maybe with some very harsh parole terms with it.
What WAR here is supporting is what the California Supreme Court once ruled was so cruel and unusual as to be unconstitutional punishment at least for lewd conduct and for some circumstances of indecent exposure and maybe all circumstances of it. Had the court given the same review to other offenses, that might have been expanded to more and more. But the political tide turned.
The mere existence of SOR after probation or parole is not only harassing, insulting, demeaning, humiliating, oppressive, intrusive, etc., etc., but it also is the legal statement that the legal system is nothing but a complete farce. You can;’t have probation and parole as the legal standard to show one has been rehabilitated to the point they can has compete freedom while you also say they are so dangerous and likely to reoffend that SOR is needed. The Sis the proof of the complete dishonesty and farce. Yet, WAR supports it!
I appreciate that WAR sees some line that hits them as too much. But they fail to really understand. They show zero understanding of what SOR really does to someone. If its OK to have SOR, then any argument about what it should involve is pointless, as opinions on and attitudes about that will change from day to day, and there can be no one legitimate opinion about that — which is how it has been incrementally expanded with one more thing after another, until we are smothered in horrors that 15 years ago people would have said was not worth discussion, that such things could never happen in America. Well, they are happening, and people’s opinions have changed to think it is fine and dandy and no big deal, and needed. Even WAR seems to accept that at least some degree of SOR is OK, which suggests even WAR thinks there is a legitimate need for it. Mind your, WAR opposed ONLY making names public, said nothing about limiting where people can live, where they can go, and all the other collateral horrors of SOR.
Regarding my parenthetical comment above that even the private SOR WAR supports would not be completely private, that is one of the points the California high court made when ruling it was unconstitutional for lewd conduct. They pointed out that any time a victim were brought into a police station, they would be shown the book of mug shots of SORs to identify a suspect, and in doing so, saw all the SORs, not simply the one suspect if even in that book. The court thought even that was too much publicizing, too humiliating for SORs because people, even close neighbors, would see and find out they were SORs. WAR supports this. The court thought even having to go in, go to the front desk and announce you are an SOR needing to register was too much, too humiliating, was cruel punishment. WAR thinks this is fine. The court thought having to go through the humiliation of a booking all over again every time you register was cruel. WAR thinks this is fine. And the court ruled this when registration was a LOT easier, much longer time frames in which to do it, had to register in only one place, didn’t even have to go in after being convicted in court because the court would send the information along, you didn’t have to go in until your next update time, etc.
WAR needs to think this over a lot more. WAR is trying to split hairs by supporting SOR, just want the publicizing of it dropped. WAR is missing the point. The real problem is the entire foundation of SOR.
Anonymous At this point I would be happy as hell to be off the Internet and on a list only for law enforcement to see It’s like you want to win the the mega jackpot but could careless about winning $10 Dude, baby steps.
You are not a vigilante if you are taking action against someone who has paid for their crimes. You are a bandit, or even a terrorist.
Nancy Grace is one of the most revolting people in contemporary news media, and should be banned from it. Her coverage of crime stories goes far beyond simple reporting: she tries to influence every case she comments on, and not out of a sense of justice but merely to feed her ego.
“Piers Morgan” (Piers Stefan O’Meara), by contrast, is a career hypocrite lacking the ability to even pretend concern for justice. First justice was the cup of water and three punches he got from Jeremy Clarkson… but this guy has been hiding in the US for years due to his association with tabloid criminality in the UK.