Dane County authorities arrested a town of Cottage Grove man they say set fire to a house Sunday night in a vigilante effort to keep a sex offender from moving in there. Russell A. Speigle, 50, was arrested on a tentative charge of arson for the fire, which destroyed a home at 4721 Gaston Circle in the town of Cottage Grove, Sheriff Dave Mahoney said Tuesday. Investigators are now trying to determine if Speigle was responsible for another fire that damaged the same house in December, Mahoney said. Full Article
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Ironically while I’ve heard of zero cases where the RSO registries have actually served to prevent an offense, we actually have thousands of examples of crimes like this occurring due to the fact that this information is so readily available to everyone, including the many unstable individuals who populate our country.
Another day in paradox.
Let me be clear, I’m not categorically stating that there are positively no cases where vigilant citizens have been able to prevent a crime due to knowing that someone could indeed be dangerous. It’s just that I know for a fact that any such situations are vanishingly rare while there are a multitude of examples of crimes DUE TO the registry. This is undeniable.
Exactly what is going to bring down the registry, its inherent tendency to create violence and its inability to prevent it.
I’m curious. Who actually owned the house? Was it the RC, his family, the state, or a landlord whom the state contracted for? None of that was even mentioned in any article related to this mess.
In California, isn’t there a 290 Registration requirement for arsonists?
Thank you, Dane County, for arresting a man who attempted vigilante violence upon a registered citizen. While there are no reliable statistics that state how often this happens, I have personal knowledge of several registered citizens in California who died at the hands of vigilantes — Michael Dodele, Bobby Ray Rainwater, Donald Crisp. How many registered citizens must die violent deaths before violence against a registered citizen is recognized as a hate crime?