[herald.ie – 8/15/20] Gardaí are closely monitoring the situation after a 59-year-old convicted child porn offender was targeted by vigilantes twice within the space of a week. It is understood that officers have given David _____ security advice after his car was torched near his home off Drogheda Street in Balbriggan on Tuesday evening. The arson attack happened just four days after vigilantes smashed up the same vehicle. Our images show _____’s car on fire in an incident that is being investigated by Balbriggan gardaí. “An exact motive for this…
Read MoreTag: Vigilantism
Kat’s Blog: A Mother’s Plea, Not So Different Than Ours
A recent, tragic shooting in New Jersey, a Federal Judge’s son killed on the family’s doorstep, her husband hospitalized with multiple gunshots. The Judge believes she was the shooter’s targeted victim because of her position on the bench. The Judge, was uninjured. Yesterday, Judge Esther Salas went on television and broadcast a desperate plea, asking those in power to do something to help those on the bench keep themselves and their families safe from individuals meaning to do them harm. She spoke about the “free-flow” of personal information, including home…
Read MoreSex offender loses COVID-19 contract at VA hospital after USA TODAY asks questions
[usatoday.com – 8/11/20] Ezekiel Lopez is a registered child sexual predator in Illinois who spent more than three years in prison for sexually abusing two teenage girls under his care. The conviction was not a barrier between Lopez and more than $700,000 in federal contracts to provide cleaning and janitorial services to help fight COVID-19 at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital just outside Chicago. No rules specifically prevented it. Government contractors are supposed to indicate on their applications whether they’ve had any felony convictions within the past two years. But Lopez was convicted…
Read MoreUK: Vigilantes ‘set fire to home where paedophile lived’
[metro.co.uk – 5/20/20] A police search has been sparked after vigilantes in Liverpool reportedly torched a house days after a convicted paedophile was removed for his own safety. The sex offender was involved in a ‘dogging gang’ which groomed and ‘systematically’ sexually abused a 13-year-old girl in North Wales in 2005, it is understood. He was jailed for three years after admitting two counts of sexual activity with a child and taking indecent photographs of a child in a 2006 court case, according to the Liverpool Echo. A crowd of…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Will Pennsylvania Ruling Begin the Domino Effect We Need?
Pennsylvania’s “Sex Offender” Registry is headed for what some are calling a life-or-death battle in the PA Supreme Court. The registry, in existence for nearly a quarter of a century, enacted as part of Megan’s Law, a law giving the public a false sense of security by allowing them access to know who and where “sex offenders” lived in their communities, is about to be challenged. A challenge that we can only hope will either begin putting the registry to death or at the very least, let it be picked…
Read More‘The Dr Phil Show’ uncovers new form of vigilantism by ‘pedophile hunters’ who ‘honeytrap’ child molesters and publicly shame them
[meaww.com – 12/11/19] Wednesday’s episode of ‘The Dr. Phil Show’ featured a unique phenomenon. Vigilante “pedophile-hunters” are a thing. Dr. Phil described it as a “controversial form of vigilantism that law enforcement is just not in favor of.” What these hunters, who are regular citizens, do is they bait potential child molesters to arrive at a certain location. They then catch them on camera and post their details online. One of these so-called pedophile-hunters is a man called Tony. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Tony founded the “Team Loyalty…
Read MoreNY: Church pulls plug on sex offender’s wedding
[poststar.com – 10/22/19] …when word got out on social media in recent days that ______ was planning to get married days after his sentencing, and the invitation that was posted on Facebook talked of the “fairytale” relationship, the you-know-what hit the proverbial fan. The wedding was to be held Saturday at South Granville Congregational Church. Pastor Rick Backus said that he was aware _____ had been accused of child sexual abuse after the wedding was booked, but in light of the fact he hadn’t been convicted the wedding was going…
Read MoreLA: Teen beat up a stranger he recognized as a sex offender, now faces hate crime count, NOPD says
A 17-year-old boy who realized he was at the same convenience store as a man whose picture had appeared on a mailed sex-offender notice followed the man away from the shop and beat him up, New Orleans police said this week. Now, besides facing a count of misdemeanor battery, Tyrin Calloway stands accused of a hate crime, apparently on the theory that he targeted his alleged victim, a stranger, for being a registered sex offender, according to Criminal District Court records. Full Article
Read More[Updated 7/9/19] Facebook updates standards to allow death threats against alleged sexual offenders
[Updated by ACSOL 7/9/19] Earlier today it was reported by the Washington Examiner newspaper that Facebook had revised its posting policies to allow individuals to post threats of harm to anyone who the media had identified as committing a sex offense. In record time, Facebook has reversed those policies and now states that it will not allow such threats to be posted. Below is link to the newest revised policies. Facebook did not explain why it made this remarkably quick change, but regardless we can be grateful that the change…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: Today is A Day to Remember
Today is Memorial Day. A day to remember those who paid the “ultimate price” as members of the U.S. Armed Forces. As a U. S. Navy veteran, I salute those who died in combat. As a leader of this movement, however, I cry for those who died not in combat, but at the hands of vigilantes. For the fights they fought were both unfair and unnecessary. The fights were unfair because, unlike soldiers, the registrants who were killed were not armed. That is because as registrants, they could not possess…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Vigilantism Against Registrants: What More Proof Do They Need?
I hate writing blog pieces like this, they’re depressing, scary and hit too close to home. But pieces like this are important for all of us to read. Pieces like this serve as “slap in the face, wake you up” reminders of what we’re all fighting for and why we need to seriously amp up the fight. Looking back at statistics, vigilante crimes against registrants have been occurring for over a decade if not longer. Murdered registrants don’t receive a lot of press and their deaths aren’t counted among those…
Read MoreRI: Concrete thrown at Rhode Island sex offender’s home
Police say someone threw a piece of concrete through the window of a registered sex offender’s home in Providence, Rhode Island. The vandalism occurred at the home of Richard Gardner at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Gardner was convicted of multiple child rapes in the 1980s and 1990s in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Residents protested Gardner for weeks after he moved into the neighborhood last year following his release from prison. Full Article Also see RI: City Officials Stoke Mob Mentality in Front of Sex Offender’s Home RI: Judge dismisses charge against sex…
Read MoreWA: Sex offender records request raises safety, First Amendment questions
Attorneys fighting a request to release the names of all level 1 sex offenders in Cowlitz County are making a novel — and perhaps long-shot — legal argument to the state Court of Appeals. Judges should take into account the motives of Kelso resident Curtis Hart, a sex offender vigilante who filed a state public records request for the list of offenders’ names months ago, a motion to the Washington Court of Appeals argues. Full Article
Read MoreIreland: Gunman shoots at wrong house in Dublin ‘after thinking sex offender lived there’
[thejournal.ie – 10/14/18] AN INNOCENT FAMILY was lucky to escape injury after a number of shots were fired into their house in Dublin by a shooter who gardaí believe was targeting a convicted sex offender, TheJournal.ie has learned. The case of mistaken identity happened on Tuesday night in Crumlin. Around four shots were fired through the front door of the house at approximately 10pm. There were four people in the house at the time. Nobody sustained any injuries. Gardaí believe the gunman got the wrong home. The family who live…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: How Many Dead Registrants is Enough?
Today a registrant in Orange County, California, is dead. He may have died at the hands of another or he may have taken his own life. This brings the total number of known dead registrants, killed by the hands of another or themselves, in California to 18 since 2005. How many dead registrants is enough? How many dead registrants will it take to persuade the public, elected officials and even the U.S. Supreme Court that registration is punishment….and not the same as being a member of Price Club. How dare…
Read MoreWA: Several more injunctions hit sex offender request
Curtis Hart is scheduled to receive the names of most of Cowlitz County’s 570 level 1 sex offenders Wednesday, but a few names likely will be withheld. One offender was granted a temporary injunction Sept. 11, and requests for injunctions to block the release of at least four other names were filed Monday on behalf of individual offenders. They are each represented by Vancouver attorney Elijah Marchbanks, and all are referred to as “John Does” in court documents. Full Article Also see: WA: Man plans to publish names of level…
Read MoreAZ: Conspiracy theories inspire vigilante justice in Tucson
[hcn.org – 9/12/18] How one man’s imagined discovery of a sex-trafficking camp in the Sonoran Desert gained life online — and in the real world. On May 31, a strange story aired on the nightly news in Tucson, Arizona. KOLD News 13 reporter Kevin Adger told viewers that a local veterans’ rights activist named Lewis Arthur had made a horrific discovery in the bushes beside a frontage road: a bunker used as a stopover by child sex traffickers. The reporter pointed out children’s clothes, an old toilet seat and a…
Read MoreWA: Man plans to publish names of level 1 sex offenders
Sex offender vigilante Curtis Hart has caused a furor among level 1 sex offenders by planning to publish many of their 570 names on the internet. Hart has requested that the sheriff’s office give him the names of all level 1 sex offenders in Cowlitz County, and under terms of a state Supreme Court ruling the agency must comply. The names, along with photos, addresses, and brief descriptions of the offenses could be released in less than two weeks. Full Article
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