A long time ago in a state far, far away (California) I volunteered at the Placentia Police Department. Placentia is a small city in Orange County California, one city over from Disneyland. I loved my time there and learned some great lessons from some really good police officers. As far as I know, Placentia PD was the first to implement Megan’s Law. Megan’s Law is the California law that started the sex offender registration and then was expanded to allow local police to notify the public of a sex offenders in the area. Most states have the same law now. I thought for sure that the Supreme Court would strike the law down because of rights to privacy, but it hasn’t happened yet.
It was 1996 or 97 when the PD decided that they were going to implement this and pass out fliers to the neighborhood a paroled child molester was moving into. I helped pass out fliers with pictures of the guy and information about his MO (Modus Operandi), parole conditions, address, some other personal information I can’t recall, and a time and place of a public meeting. I had a special connection as I was a teenager still living with my parents two blocks down form this guy. My youngest sister was only a couple years older then his last victim.
People were outraged. How could the police department let a sex offender move into their neighborhood? To the police department’s credit, they were trying. They even had an expert in child molesting come in to talk about keeping kids safe from being molested. Some of the uniformed cops talked, and the investigator in charge of the case spoke. They all talked about keeping kids safe from potential molesters. The crowd was almost ready to riot. All they cared about was getting rid of the one molester they knew about. The investigator tried to give states, tell people how many kids had been molested by people that no one knew about. The crowd didn’t care.
The meeting broke up without anything constructive getting done. But I learned something. People will always focus on one perceived threat and completely ignore everything else. This guy was a threat, but not much after the fliers were put out. His neighbors pretty much spit on him anytime he left the house, there was always a cop driving by, and his parole officer was there daily. A couple weeks later he moved a couple miles away, and then couldn’t get a job because of the publicity. A job was on his conditions of parole, so he went back to jail.
After he moved everyone went back to their lives like there was no danger anymore. I know for a fact a couple years before this kids had been molested at a day care out of someone’s home a block away and I’m sure kids have been molested in the area since.
So what did I learn? People will worry about small things they can see and forget about everything else. People use to call it being an ostridge, if I can’t see the evil it can’t see me. Now it’s being called being a sheeple. People that act like sheep and follow the person in front of them and have a sheep dog to protect them from the wolves. People are still the same. They want other people to take care of them and will only look at danger if you force it upon them. Then they will be outraged. Outraged that there is danger in our lives and just as outraged that it was shown to them. They would rather live in ignorance then reality.
Don’t be part of the Sheeple. Learn what dangers are in your life and then take reasonable precautions to avoid them. If you ignore them they just might come crashing down on you and your family.
Stay Safe,
Ben