| Tuesday, August 12, 2003 |
16:59 - Crimes of omission
http://traffic2.bayinsider.com/news/2400932/detail.html
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The big flap on the KCBS news every ten minutes is that a repeat child molester, Brian DeVries, has been ruled by a judge to be no longer a threat to the community, and ordered transferred from the mental hospital where he's been kept for the last several years... into a trailer on the grounds of the Soledad prison.
Residents of Soledad are outraged, KCBS reports over and over. Money soccer-mom soundbite: "I'm very disappointed that the judge reached this decision, and didn't try to take any steps to protect the children of our community."
Other pithy quotes:
"This isn't the appropriate location for him," said Noelia Chapa, city manager for the Monterey County town of 13,000 along Highway 101. "He needs to go back to Santa Clara County. We don't want to be the dumping ground here."
"We don't want this guy in our town. This guy is sick," Gutierrez, 43, said. "He should go to a place in the desert where there's no kids around."
To hear the news report, well, hell, absolutely. Why would the judge act so irresponsibly? Why would anyone release this guy from the psych ward?
Why, it's because of one small, insignificant fact that KCBS seems to find it entirely unimportant to report:
To help demonstrate his intent to reform, DeVries was castrated in August 2001 -- a surgery DeVries said took away his ability to become sexually aroused.
Something tells me that most of the wide-eyed interviewees on the street that KCBS and other news agencies keep talking to aren't being made aware of this meaningless little tidbit.
It is as it has always been: just say the magic words To Protect The Children, and the throng will nod along to the beat.
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