Saturday, April 14, 2018

The Forgotten Victims of National Crime Week

The Forgotten Victims of National Crime Week
By Derek W. Logue of OnceFallen.com
4/13/2018

The week of April 8th to April 14th of 2018 has been declared “Nation Crime Victim’s Rights Week,” and while discussions about crime victims are commonplace, this recognized memorial week provides a greater platform for the victims’ rights group to promote their advocacy. There is, however, a narrative that has been neglected this week—the victimization of registered citizens and their loved ones by virtue of the public registry and the laws they inspire. 

In 2012, Patrick Drum of Port Angeles, WA used the sex offender registry as a personal hitlist, ambushing two people in their own homes and planned to murder at least two others before getting caught by the police. Days later, the widow of one of the victims, Leslie Blanton, a mother of two children, had to pick up the pieces of her life. She lost a loving husband and father to her children. Over the next few months, Leslie would have to endure a media blitz, harassment by neighbors, and even online movements to free her husband’s killer because some hailed career criminal Patrick Drum a “hero.” It also gave Drum a platform to espouse his views. He proclaimed to the courts that “This country was founded on vigilantism,” and while the court ignored ramblings of Drum in sentencing him to two life sentences without parole, the media repeated Drum’s statements to the cheers of the online vigilantes. 

Even in this narrative, Paul Ray was largely forgotten. He was in his own home when his son, Jerry, was ambushed by Patrick Drum. Paul watched his own son die in his own house. Paul, who was already quite old, relied on his son to help him around the house. But Leslie made for a more compelling story to the story as a grieving widow with children. In the months following his son’s murder, Paul Ray was in the background and hardly discussed. 

Patrick Drum was not the only vigilante who would target registered citizens using the public registry; during a previous stint in prison, Drum met Michael Anthony Mullen, who also used the registry to murder two registered citizens in Washington back in 2005. Mullen disguised himself as an FBI agent to ambush two registered persons he found on the public registry. According to Drum, the two men planned a killing spree while in prison but Mullen died before the plan could be implemented.

Less than a year later, Jeremy and Christine Moody made headlines across the country for murdering Charles Parker, a registered person, and his wife, Gretchen, after pulling the man’s name from the registry. The Moodys were Neo-Nazi skinheads who wrote a self-published book proclaiming, among other things, that the entire families of registered citizens should be slaughtered to “purify the bloodline.” They went by the last name Mengele, a nod to Josef Mengele, the infa­mous Nazi doc­tor who performed medical experiments at Auschwitz and sending thousands of women and children to the gas chambers. Yet, these two were declared “heroes” in the eyes many people. Little time was spent by the media discussing Charles and Gretchen Parker since the stars of the story were a Neo-Nazi duo who showed no remorse and bragged about their crimes in court. 

Not every vigilante story involves murder, but in every news article, the victims are overlooked other than the shining of the spotlight on the label carried by the victims. 

In 2016, just days after his own release from jail for probation violations stemming from burglary charges, Alaska resident Jason Vukovich attacked three registered citizens. Vukovich, who claimed to be an “avenging angel,” carried a notebook with a list of nine names that he planned to target. Vukovich said he collected the names from acquaintances. He said they told him the people were “pedophiles.” Three of those named in the notebook, Charles Albee, Andres Barbosa and Wesley Demarest, were assaulted in their homes by Vukovich. Vukovich knocked Demarest unconscious with a hammer and robbed the victims during his crime spree. Only when faced with a lengthy sentence did Vukovich change his narrative, presumably in hopes of receiving a lenient sentence. As sentencing day drew near, Vukovich told the media, “There is no place for vigilante justice in an ordered society and I want to deter others that find themselves in a similar position as I found myself in the summer of 2016.”

The victims of Vukovich’s crimes received little acknowledgement from the media, same Wesley Demarest, whose bruised faced was used repeatedly in the media to show the brutality behind the attack. Of course, media outlets and independent websites used the pictures and the comments by the victim as mere window dressing for the narrative on Vukovich’s attack. 


Perhaps individuals like Patrick Drum and Jason Vukovich received some kind of punishment for attacking registered citizens, but there is no accountability whatsoever when the perpetrator has the backing of the government. The ongoing saga of the homeless registered citizen camps in Miami is a prime example. For over a decade, Miami-Dade County has forced registered citizens into homelessness through the “Lauren Book Child Safety Ordinance,” the county’s 2500 foot residency restriction laws. The ordinance is named after the daughter of South Florida’s arguably most powerful lobbyist, Ron Book. There has never been a more blatant example of the abuse of registry laws than in Miami, but even in the face of public scrutiny, the emphasis has been on the Books rather than on those registered humans the Books have forced into homelessness. 

While the registrant camps have been a source of international embarrassment for the area, the county continues to justify the ordinance, and Book uses the constant media attention to espouse his vengeful views. In report after report, the Books have attacked camp residents as the cause of their own homeless problems while denying that the laws they created played any role in the homeless crisis. The media repeatedly focuses on the Books, and their words merely serve to incite and inflame the ignorant populace. Even the “Untouchable” documentary, a film largely approved by those in the registry reform movement, placed the spotlight largely on the Book family, with those in opposition to the Books, along with those suffering under the laws espoused by and named after Lauren Book, largely pushed into the background. Many voices of the Anti-Registry Movement were silenced in the very film that was at least partly intended to speak about the registered citizens who continue to lack a voice. 

It is not often registered citizens get the opportunity to speak out, but when registered citizens do get a chance to speak out, they are often identified by the label rather than their identities. Last month, I was featured in a Dayton Daily News article discussing the struggles I face on the registry, and while the article was mostly great, the headline of the article read, “Sex offender says Ohio’s registry ‘destroys lives,’ should be abolished.” It is as if my name is not Derek Logue, but “sex offender.” I am described as an adjective, not a noun. I am titled by an action committed in the last millennium. The media is aware using the label invites the worst comments. The reporter interviewing me for the news article acknowledged this fact, asking if I was aware the first few comments in the article were going to be negative and possibly threatening in nature. People are aware the label largely excuses the worst atrocities committed by Americans against those shamed on the public registry, especially if the registered citizen is male. (By contrast, articles regarding female registrants tend to be more sympathetic in tone, such as Vice.com’s October 2017 article, “The Sex Offender Registry Leaves Female Sex Offenders Open to Abuse,” another article in which I was quoted.) 

How much discussion was there during National Crime Victims’ Week was devoted to discussing the victimization of America’s registered citizens? I am not aware of any discussions of the perils and pitfalls of the public sex offense registry. If America is expected to celebrate a week of victimhood, then it must include all types of victimization, even those for which Americans lack sympathy. When registered citizens are murdered in cold blood or forced into homelessness or poverty, the focus should be on the wrongfulness of these atrocities instead of the arbitrary label of the victim. It is time Americans recognize that people can become victims of bad public policy as well as by individual criminals. 

12 comments:

  1. Derek, thank you for writing this. You are exactly right--people can become victims of damaging--and deadly--public policy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are two issues I think you need to write blog articles on. An innocent man clearly on the Sex Offender Registry and is being blocked from his false confession audio, blocked from the forensic report that contains NO child p*rn photos and no thumbnails, and yet the forensic report is being blocked from his access. They keep trying to shut down any claim he makes in Federal Court that all he wants to do is prove his innocence and is being blocked from it while he is publicly on the Sex Registry which is wrong. If he is innocent then he should be allowed to prove it in a reasonable way but they won't allow it. That is why you need to cover this issue and another pertinent SO issue.

    First issue is a registered sex offender filing a Writ of Habeas Corpus petition under Title 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he has claimed ineffective assistance of counsel that is backed by three different witness Declarations and evidence that his lawyer was deleting evidence email attachments sent from family while he was in jail. Then he filed evidence proving cover up of the forensic report because it stated that 454 alleged child porn files had downloaded from July 20, 2012, and July 28, 2013, when his Laptop was seized on August 28, 2012. The forensic report never verified whether any of the alleged CP photos were of actual children and never verified the ages of whoever or whatever was in each photo. There was no blurred thumbnails at all, the Federal Prosecutor admitted in his PreSentence Report that none of the alleged CP images were of a known series which contradicted the police detective that claimed that Brian had downloaded certain specific CP files of a known series to law enforcement. So there are holes, contradictions, and the very CP Detective Bridge claimed Brian had downloaded was not even confirmed to have been found on Brian's seized computer. Then the federal filings prove that Brian had written online blog articles in Mayodan North Carolina calling the town a corrupt Government municipality, calling for a criminal investigation against its town Attorney who is a State Senator, his son was District Attorney. The DA's highly praised Assistant, her brother was the one who investigated Brian for alleged CP possession. Brian's confession statements don't match the SBI forensic report. Brian provided all of this evidence in his Writ of Habeas Corpus petition asking for acquittal and removal from the Sex Offender registry and the US Attorney has ignored the evidence, ignored all witnesses and admitted to ignoring witnesses at a federal court hearing, and he is pushing for a gag-order aka a suppression order asking to seal all filings regarding his actual innocence to be shut off forever. The general public will not be allowed to see the evidence of his innocence while his sex offender photo is public and anybody can see it and his name and address. So the corrupt US Attorney Assistant has engaged in subornation of perjury and even obstruction of justice, as well as deprivation of their criminal Defendant's Constitutional and civil rights under the color of law, as well as unethical behavior under Rule 3.8 of the NC State Bar rules of Professional Conduct. Instead the US Attorney bully is pushing for a permanent pre-filing injunction, using case law that doesn't even apply to Brian's case filing tactics and strategy, and making false or conclusory allegations against Brian, and asking for him to remain as a Sex Offender and be further punished just for trying to prove his actual innocence.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Part 2: This kind of Legal Terrorism, LawFare (Legal Warfare), bullying is not what John Walsh had originally proposed when he created penalties against suspected child predators. He never intended for Prosecutors to bully and undermine the actual innocence of criminal defendants when the evidence of innocence weighs heavily towards a particular criminal defendant proclaiming his innocence. What the corrupt US Attorney has done is slandered/defamed Brian Hill and then turns around and destroys the very purpose of the Adam Walsh Act which was ONLY to go after pedophiles, rapists, and child molesters. It was never meant to deprive people of their Constitutional right to prove that they are actually innocent. This case needs to be discussed otherwise it sits in the darkness.

    Also by discussing Brian's case on your blog, it prevents the gag order from being a real possibility of it being granted by the Magistrate Judge as he is doing a great job at taking his time to look over the evidence instead of doing a rubber stamp ruling. So there is time for you to review over his Habeas Corpus filings regarding his actual innocence in a child p*rnography case, and make your own determinations. The US Attorney doesn't provide one shred of proof, not one Affidavit in response to Brian's claims under his 2255 Motion. Instead he claims that Brian untimely filed it while actual innocence claims cannot be barred by the statute of limitations. Actual innocence does allow Brian to file untimely but the US Attorney is ignoring all evidence of innocence including his false confession. They are ignoring his Autism and OCD. This was not what John Walsh had envisioned for going after rapists and child molesters.

    It is time for John Walsh to criticize Anand Prakash Ramaswamy the corrupt Asst. US Attorney for his blatant misconduct and refusal to examine all evidence and then test the evidence to see if it is legally valid or just a bunch of nonsense. The Federal Prosecutor is not following his duties and he is not appropriately dealing with Brian's claims of his actual innocence, instead claiming that Brian is harassing the Government and pushing to seal up all of his filings with a gag order and then further punish Brian with contempt of court in addition to pre-filing injunction. They even talked about Brian being suicidal, and they know that this case is making him want to end his life but instead of letting him prove his case of actual innocence, they rather further punish him which will drive him even faster towards his own death by self inflicted suicide. They are bullying him, they are mean and they don't care about the evidence and neither of the witnesses. All they care about is making him a Sex Offender and moving on the next case to do the same thing. You need to cover his story so that it doesn't fall into the darkness and Brian can finally get the publicity he needs to ensure Justice for his wrongful conviction.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Part 3: https://justiceforuswgo.wordpress.com/2018/04/10/uswgo-news-brian-hill-files-response-to-governments-pre-filing-injunction-motion/

    https://justiceforuswgo.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/assistant-u-s-attorney-pushes-for-injunction-to-shut-down-foia-2255-cases-alert/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Part 4 (LAST Part for your review):
    2nd issue is that more and more people are reporting to have received child p*rnography in their email accounts in some kind of Anonymous hacking attempt to be frame people with this filthy material.

    The number of people claiming to have received child p*rn photos have increased and are going public with this attack tactic.

    https://justiceforuswgo.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/alex-jones-receiving-a-child-pornography-set-up-attempt-reported-to-to-fbi/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.newsweek.com/arkansas-woman-says-she-murdered-her-husband-because-he-bought-pornography-1047808

      Now this comes out an Arkansas Woman kills her Husband after she accused him over porn.

      Delete
  6. https://www.statesman.com/news/crime--law/spencer-carlton-not-guilty-fatal-shove-prompted-alleged-groping/rWmPLVzwdqjsajp52zjnlI/

    Hey check this out Spencer Carlton of Texas got special treatment in Court after killing a guy he claimed was committing Sexual Assault. Yes Apparently Spencer Carltons lawyers managed to sway the judge and Metoo Audiences to support his claims and allegations in Court. This shit was happening at the same time when the national news outlets was going after Aaron Persky. Yes apparently Spencer Carlton managed to be the first vigilante to get special treatment that even other vigilantes wish they had for murdering or harassing people they accuse of stuff that Metoo and Creep Catchers are supposed after.

    ReplyDelete
  7. http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article_f6044ef0-6e7c-11e8-8b06-4bcf4ec8076c.html

    Yes another Deplorable thug named Ken Maurice Butler is trying to look good in front of Metoo Audiences over a stabbing attempt trial and now he's claiming he's fighting against sexual assault against Women and apparently he stabbed a guy he claimed was assaulting women in Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  8. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/18/629731693/fake-news-turns-deadly-in-India

    Now this fake news shit is coming out of India. There have been reports that Vigilantes in India have been using Whatsapp a Facebook owned outlet. The vigilantes in the reports have murdered multiple people they accuse of being Child Molesters/ Rapists/ and Sexual Harassers in the reports. The Indian Vigilantes end up getting the entire neighborhood to lynch the victims in question after the vigilantes told certain cities on What's app that a rapist was in the area and it lead to lynchings and other stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  9. https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/agustin-duran-convicted-child-molester-killed-inmate-andres-ayon-after-wasco-state-prison

    Now a vigilante convicted of armed robbery (I think robbery has to have the highest recidivism rates) is now convicted of killing an RSO from prison

    ReplyDelete
  10. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-45168310

    Now a vigilante in the UK starts killing people they accuse of being murderers

    ReplyDelete
  11. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6091983/Woman-false-rape-claim-gets-1-year-jail.html


    Damn the Metoo movement is facing an Alex Jones Infowars moment. Now You have Asia Argento being accused of ordering Anthony Bourdain of sending hush money to a man who is in the process of suing Asia Argento of rape. A female NYU Professor accused of rape and this. Damn this is like Alex Jones levels of scandals here. It's similar to Alex Jones getting sued for two false rape allegations involving Pizzagate and Chobanigate plus the Sandy Hook lawsuit.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.