Source: durangoherald.com 8/24/23
‘When we make them a pariah, we drive them underground,’ says district attorney
A Durango man accused of breaking into another man’s house in the middle of the night and attempting to fatally shoot him may have been carrying out an act of vigilantism directed toward a registered sex offender, according to the victim and an arrest affidavit.
Several details of the Aug. 9 shooting remain unknown or have not yet been made public by law enforcement.
For example, it is unknown if the suspect, Troy Allen Brown, 34, and the victim, Thomas Jeffrey _____ , 52, knew each other. It is also unknown how Brown identified _____ as a sex offender.
What is known is that _____ was listed as a sex offender on a registry maintained by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. The registry is publicly available to search online. It lists Mitchell’s address, apartment number, physical description and includes a mug shot of _____ . It says he has an out-of-state conviction in 2006 for child molestation and convictions in 2011 for sexual exploitation of a child involving videos.
Sixth Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne said it is unknown if Brown used the CBI’s sex offender registry to target _____ , “but that’s certainly something that we’re looking at.”
If Brown did use the registry, it raises questions about the registry’s goals and the potential dangers of publicly identifying sex offenders, who are among the most socially stigmatized class of criminals.
Another example of how the registry is good for nothing except a hit list.
Notice how the website posted the victim’s mugshot to make it easier for others to finish the attempted murder.
Regardless what their “intentions” were when they started they are very aware of what it is doing and what its intent is now. The fact that having learned how the public uses it and the fact that the “informing the public” makes no one safer and instead allows a segment of the population to target, harrass, and murder another segment (making people far less safe) proves the lie that its not meant to be punishment or not target offenders. When you know something does not do what you thought it would do and instead does the exact opposite and still allow it to remain you have made it clear the intent is the “opposite” of the original intentions and become liable for the damages. If I buy a gun to protect my self and then pull it out everytime someone offends me then my purpose in getting the gun was not protection, but intimidation and all my protestations to the opposite are just mealy mouthed lies.
Imagine living in a ghetto ass apartment in a hard-core game infested neighborhood because the nice apartment buildings in the nice neighborhoods won’t rent to you, even though you qualify.
It’s an unfortunate reality that PFR have to deal with ever day. I don’t know not one person that lives on my street let alone my neighborhood or in my community BUT they all know me, someone can just walk up right now knock on my door and shoot me in the face at any moment.
Theres probably a family talking about me right now as I’m typing this my life could be in danger ⛔️
What do they mean if? That’s a cognitive distortion on their part.
Read the comments on this article and the two others associated to it from Aug 10 within the article to see the world we live in with their ignorance on the subject.
“[T]he sex offender registry is intended to be a tool that gives residents information about where sex offenders reside. It is not intended to be a form of punishment.”
Why? Because these people are dangerous? But the vast majority of them aren’t dangerous and there’s ample evidence of this fact. As for it not being meant as a form of punishment, the fact is that the registry is a public digital pillory that has the effect of being a form a punishment.
“[T]he recidivism rate among sex offenders on supervision is significantly lower than other criminal offenders, partially because of intensive monitoring and treatment programs they undergo.”
Utter bullshit! The police, parole agents, and probation officers don’t have the time or resources to monitor sex offenders, effectively or otherwise. The police don’t stake out my house nor do they do drive-bys. I see them once a year for my annual and they come by the house to do a “compliance check.” When that happens, most of the time I simply don’t answer the door as I am under no legal obligation whatsoever to speak with them. As for the “treatment programs” they undergo, well, I can only speak for myself. When I was on parole, I was required to attend mostly useless meetings with a parole psychologist once a month. The only effective treatment program that I was in was the one I paid for myself, one with a therapist I met with ONCE A WEEK who had the time to perform EMDR on me to help me rediscover all the repressed sexual trauma from my childhood, and the nearly fifteen years of Twelve Step work I’ve done in Sex Addicts Anonymous. It is what I did for myself that has changed my life and not what the state provided for me.
As I reread this article, I realize that is does a pretty good job of advocating for the abolition of the registry in its entirety.
Another case for eliminating the registry. It doesn’t matter if it’s for police use only, if they want to make a list of people convicted of sex offenses then they can do that on their own. But to make the list the duty of the offender then tack on felonies if the registry is violated then on top of all that, make it public so people will feel vindicated in murdering someone, oh, and all the other shunning via residency restrictions and public shaming and you have the precise definition of punishment. … The facts need to go to the Supreme Court and the damn thing eliminated.
Poor Sixth Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne. He seems to know a decent amount about the Registries and have some sense, but he comes off as a seriously pompous tw*t. He *might* be a decent person, but probably not. But what else should we expect of a child with little wisdom?
I’m listed on one of his governments’ Sex Offense Registries. If I’m a “sex offender” then he is a “piece of sh*t a**hole (POSA)”. Name calling goes both ways.
I like how he talks about how sex offenders are able to get apartments and are sometimes denied, etc. I don’t live in an apartment. I live in a huge house and I own a lot of them. I’m more likely to own any apartment the POSA lives in. Or profit off all the things that he has to do in order to borrow enough money to barely afford to live in a home.
Just pompous garbage. Kind of the root of the Registries. Supported by dumb children.
The Sex Offense Registries are unacceptable. Until they are destroyed there must be war and people must pay.
“Champagne said the recidivism rate among sex offenders on supervision is significantly lower than other criminal offenders, partially because of intensive monitoring and treatment programs they undergo.” Not even a little true, on either count.
Love how they try to say the low recidivism rate is thanks to the registry. 🤣🤣 what a load.
When I was still in Michigan my meth head neighbors and the local police did nothing but harass me day and night.
Lived in that neighborhood my whole life. Harassed originally for being the only Asian, then when I got put on the hit list it got worse.
They set the back half of my house on fire. Shot at my house on a regular with 22s and whatever else they had. Ran me off the road, slashed all my tires, ripped out my mailbox, tore off my front porch with their truck.
The only way to end it was to move. After moving they leveled the house. It’s still an empty lot today. So yeah. They only good thing Michigan does is remove you from the list if you move out.
Just wish I moved out of the country originally before getting stuck on the NY list.
“Sex offenders have received community scorn as a result of being on the sex offender registry, Champagne said, but typically they are able to work through it, be successful and make a life for themselves.”
This is why I hate District Attorneys. They’re so arrogant and smug in their beliefs about people they steam roll through the criminal justice system. They believe everyone is doing “just fine” despite the obstacles put in place by the very system they work for.
“Several years ago, I subscribed to LifeLock as a precaution to protect 0lagainst identity theft. I received an urgent alert that there was a sex offender living in my zip code on Girard. The address was the county jail. So much for LifeLock!”
I just had to quote this comment a dufus left for the newspaper. It just shows how little the public knows about the folks who run the registry. Rule #1: Don’t expect things to make sense when it comes to the registry. Of course they’re going to keep people on the registry when their locked up in jail! There’s no better way to keep the community safe from “predators” than locking them up, but the idiots who run the registry still believe they’re better at keeping the public safe than the prison system.
Hey I’m not an offender due to the fact I and others like myself are not involved in sex or other crimes and just want to live our life without the government continuing to pass legislation based on emotions and looking like they care. If any one is an offender it’s you in government and the public who create harm/hate on those on the Sex offense registry and we are ones you label dangerous.
Champagne said, but typically they are able to work through it, be successful and make a life for themselves.
Toxic positivity and ableism!
This guy is an absolutely clueless and divorced from reality. Yeah, lets just minimize how it puts one’s life in constant physical, mental and financial ruins, but hey, no biggie, right?
Champagne has been programmed what to say. Same tired lies and talking points about how the registry is “tool” for law enforcement blah, blah, blah… You know it’s illegal when they constantly use lies to cover up the lies.
From my perspective, some people MAY benefit from sex therapy and less likely from the “supervision”. No one has ANY IDEA what percentage of people benefit from which, or don’t benefit at all. And certainly, the efficacy of ‘sex offender therapy’ varies greatly dependent on the therapist and the subject. To make sweeping generalizations, as reflected in this article, is foolish.
In my personal experience, over the five years of my federal supervised release, I had five therapists, of which three were exceptionally helpful and valuable assets in my life. They were most effective in helping me deal with the stress I was experiencing resulting from loss of employment, friends, social isolation and shame. Little had to do with any sexual aspect of my psyche. Part of the stress that I was dealing with was directly as result of the “supervision” component (unnecessarily?) heaped upon us by those who concoted this Kafka-esque scheme (of which even Torquemada would be quite proud).
How much proof is actually needed to establish the fact that the government is guilty of inciting violence and other crimes on those whom it forces to register against their will (trafficked)?
Hey I’m not an offender due to the fact I and others like myself aren’t committing sex or any other types of crimes. I just want to live my life without the legislator passing more draconian laws just to look like they are doing something. Nothing about the registry makes the community safer. All it does is create more division and hate, which the government is good at and weaponize it in order to pass their agenda.
Where possible, we should learn from these acts of violence and prepare accordingly. Looks like this offender came through a large plate glass window. Most homes have something like this feature. A good alarm system can provide some warning to residents, giving them vital seconds to prepare for an impending attack. A siren that trips on glass breakage may also make the individual cease their home invasion altogether, knowing the likelyhood law enforcement may be on their way.
In a worst-case scenario, where the intruder is undeterred by a security system, you should have a home defense plan that places you at maximum advantage against an intruder so you can launch a counter-attack with whatever weapons are allowed by your state and conviction. Use choke-points and unconventional or improvised weapons if necessary and have them at the ready.
Rather than be the target of someone trying to rid the earth of us, let us be the means of potentially ridding the earth of one of them should they attempt to harm us. Successfully fighting back sends a message that will help all of us be safer in the long run.
can few do a class action because of this? Maybe we can sue the estate of the family who murder one of us and keep at it…