Satellite Tracking of People LLC

DC Police Arrest Suspect In Sexual Assaults

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

DC Police Arrest Suspect In Sexual Assaults

DC police have taken a man into custody in connection with two sexual assault cases that occurred along Georgia Avenue, Northwest, on Wednesday.

Twenty-three year old Tyrell Powell of Northeast, DC, was arrested outside of a court services office in the 1200 block of Taylor St., Northwest, Friday afternoon. That address is where Powell has been reporting to his release supervisor.

Court officials say one of their release officers thought they recognized Powell in a surveillance picture that had been released by DC Police on Thursday. On Friday, they tracked Powell’s movements and allegedly placed him at the scenes of both incidents, using the GPS tracker in the ankle bracelet worn by Powell as part of his supervised release.

DC Police had been looking for a man believed to be responsible for two kidnapping and sex assault incidents in the Fourth District onWednesday. Both cases involved juvenile females who were approached by a lone male.

In the first incident, a 14-year-old juvenile female reported to police that at approximately 4:19 p.m. onWednesday in the area of Georgia Avenue and Jefferson Street, NW, a man attempted to forcibly kidnap her before she was able to get away. In the second incident, a 15-year-old juvenile female reported that at approximately 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, while in the area of Georgia Avenue and Webster STreet, NW, she was approached by the man who forcibly kidnapped the victims and subsequently sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.

Right now 420 people, with offenses ranging from sex assault to domestic violence, are being tracked in the District using electronic ankle devices.

Using real-time GPS satellite technology, the device will alert federal officers assigned to keep track of them, when they’ve violated conditions of their release.

Carlton Butler, the lead electronic monitoring technician for Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for DC says, “We tell the offender he’s restricted in that area and the moment he goes in that area, the device will give us an immediate alert that he’s there.”

The technology is helping police departments in DC and surrounding jurisdictions work together to solve crimes.

While some people near the crime scenes questioned why offenders, like Powell, aren’t tracked by officers 24 hours a day, others appear more understanding.

One man told 9NEWS NOW, “I can see just the man hours it would take; that’s a lot of work. But I think it’s good they can go back and look at the records and see where this man has been.”

Butler say the technology is invaluable because the evidence can’t be refuted. “It’s very difficult for an individual when you have a tool like that for him or her to actually lie when they’re looking at the screen and the screen tells the truth,” he says.

Written by Bill Starks and Nancy Yamada, 9News NOW

© 2008, WUSA. All Rights Reserved

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18-Feb-08 0:00 AM

Gangs and GPS - Video Article

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:00:00 GMT

2-Aug-07 11:00 AM

GPS Arrest - Video Article

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT

31-Jul-07 2:00 PM

GPS puts parolee at San Bernardino robbery scenes

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT

A pilot program to fit gang parolees with GPS monitors led to the arrest Thursday of a suspect in a spree of armed robberies in San Bernardino's suburban north end.

Descriptions from the robberies, which occurred mostly on one stretch of Kendall Drive late Wednesday afternoon, led investigators to believe one of four city parolees might be involved.

One, as it turned out, was part of a state Department of Corrections and rehabilitation pilot program that monitors the whereabouts of gang members with the Global Positioning System.

A parole agent and police officer on Thursday ran a check of recent locations for the man, 37-year-old San Bernardino resident Armando Villareal Hernandez. They saw exact matches for all five of the street robberies reported Wednesday, police said.

“Between the two of us there was a little bit of disbelief for a second,” said Parole Agent Ernie Bastridge.

Within hours, police arrested Hernandez by again utilizing his GPS monitor, finding him near a downtown liquor store, said San Bernardino police Lt. Scott Paterson.

As officers were closing in, Hernandez threw a replica handgun, which might have been used in the robberies, out his car window, Paterson said.

Hernandez was booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of armed robbery and parole violations. He is being held without bail.

“You'd think somebody with a bracelet wouldn't do anything,” Paterson said. “Oh, yeah. They would.”

Hernandez was one of the first non-sex-offender parolees to be fitted with a GPS monitor, Bastridge said. The pilot program, funded by the state, began in San Bernardino in April 2006 at the urging of Mayor Pat Morris, who, during his election campaign, promised to pursue the issue.

It is now being considered for expansion throughout the state. The Veritracks program targets the highest-risk gang parolees in San Bernardino, Paterson said.

Although the prohibitive cost — about $64,000 annually for every 20 felons tracked — doesn't allow it to be used on each of the roughly 1,800 city parolees, Morris' office said the arrest shows the pilot program works.

“It sends a pretty clear message to those wearing anklets,” said Jim Morris, chief of staff for Mayor Pat Morris. “If you do something, you will be found.”

The anklet was fitted on Hernandez in April, after he was paroled from prison, Bastridge said. The suspect has prior convictions in San Bernardino of car theft and burglary, according to court records.

The robberies in the north end Wednesday occurred mostly in the street and in parking lots, Paterson said. The robber would point a gun and demand cash and jewelry from pedestrians.

Paterson said that officers are still investigating whether Hernandez was involved in any earlier reported robberies in the area. He said the GPS anklet would be crucial to determining that.

“It's not the only tool we have in the toolbox,” he said. “But it can be a very, very valuable tool.”

27-Jul-07 2:00 PM

Police Net First Gang Member Violating Parole With Help of GPS Anklet

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:00:00 GMT

SAN BERNARDINO — The first high-risk gang member
being tracked by police and state parole agents with a Global
Positioning System anklet has been arrested, authorities said
Tuesday.

Raymundo Reyes Jr., 25, was taken into custody Saturday at a
house in the 1300 block of East Orchid Drive after police
found him associating with another gang member there, a
violation of his parole, said Elaine Jennings, spokeswoman for
the California Department of Corrections in Sacramento.

San Bernardino is the first city in the nation to use satellite
tracking for high-risk gang members. State parole agents
began using them on high-risk sex offenders last year.

There are about 3,000 documented gang members in San
Bernardino. A spate of gang-related homicides late last year
and early this year, but primarily the Nov. 13 fatal shooting of
an 11-year-old girl during what authorities said was an act of
gang retaliation, triggered public outcry and became the
central platform in a contentious mayoral campaign.
During his campaign, Mayor Pat Morris wrote in his
“Operation Phoenix” anti-crime plan that he wanted to
expand the use of GPS tracking for all violent parolees.
Last month, Morris and Police Chief Michael Billdt
announced the city’s partnership with state parole officials in
using GPS anklets on the most dangerous gang members
released from prison onto city streets.

Morris said Reyes’ arrest showed the program is working to
keep parolees in check.

“This is exactly what we hoped would happen if these gang-
member parolees visited places prohibited by their parolee
terms,” he said, adding that Reyes’ arrest should send a
message to the other parolees wearing the GPS units: We
know where you are, and if you don’t do what’s required you’ll
be back in jail.

A police officer had been tracking Reyes on Saturday and
went to the Orchid Drive location to check up on him. When
he got there, he learned Reyes was hanging out with Joel
Hernandez, a documented gang member and a parolee at
large, authorities said. Both men were arrested, Jennings said.
Reyes was released from prison March 8. He served about two
years in prison for spousal abuse, Jennings said. He has prior
convictions for battery and petty theft, court records show.
Twenty high-risk gang members in San Bernardino are now
fitted with the GPS anklets, and another 20 are worn by high-
risk sex offenders in the city, Jennings said.

Statewide, 262 high-risk sex offenders are now wearing the
GPS anklets, she said.

Staff writer Kelly Rayburn contributed to this report.

5-Apr-07 12:00 PM

Tracking Offenders with GPS - Video Article

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:00:00 GMT

27-Mar-07 3:00 PM

Tracking Trouble - Video Article

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT

26-Mar-07 2:00 PM

City Sees Early Success in GPS Program

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Nearly 40 documented gang members who wore Global Positioning System ankle bracelets as a condition of their parole were returned to prison in the last 11 months for violating the terms of their release, authorities said.

Since the city partnered with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation last March to have 20 highrisk gang parolees wear the ankle bracelets as part of a pilot program, parole agents have been arresting an average of three parolees a month for violating the conditions of their release, said Ernie Bastarache, a San Bernardino parole agent who oversees the program and monitors the whereabouts of parolees.

Although the state began monitoring sex offenders using GPS ankle bracelets in 2005, San Bernardino is the first city in California to use the technology to track high-risk gang members. Using technology to track violent criminals was one strategy in an 18-point anti-crime plan Mayor Pat Morris published last year during his campaign for office. Another theme in his plan centered on partnering with officials outside the city to combat violent crime.

Now, the state corrections department is considering expanding the pilot program, and has requested data from its San Bernardino office, said administrator Paul Abril.

Brad Mitzelfelt, the county’s 1st District supervisor, has recently proposed tracking gang members countywide using GPS technology. He said he has begun discussions with the sheriff and representatives with the District Attorney’s Office about proposing state legislation to make it a provision of parole for gang members.

Mitzelfelt helped draft San Bernardino County’s sexualpredator ordinance and was active in efforts to pass Jessica’s Law, named after Jessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who was raped and murdered in February 2005. The law calls for lengthy prison sentences and lifetime electronic monitoring of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with children under 12.

“Just based on our experience with sexual predators, we know it’s been an effective tool,” Mitzelfelt’s spokesman, David Zook, said of GPS tracking of offenders. “Not only is it effective in tracking the individual the device is attached to, but it’s also an instrument of psychological warfare - San Bernardino County is not the place to be if you want to gangbang and be a criminal.”

Authorities have learned that tracking such criminals with GPS technology can serve other purposes as well, such as helping detectives in homicide investigations.

n September, 35-year-old Ronald Jaramillo was shot to death in the 4000 block of North First Avenue in an unincorporated pocket of San Bernardino, near 40th Street, while driving an SUV. Although his girlfriend was with him at the time and survived, the GPS ankle bracelet Jaramillo was wearing helped investigators track his movements, Bastarache said.

“We were able to track him from the time he left his residence up to the time he was killed - the route he took and the places he stopped along the way,” Bastarache said.

San Bernardino police Lt. Scott Paterson said detectives are still ironing out issues related to sharing its data with the Redlands Police Department, which formats all the GPS data on a mainframe computer in the basement of its headquarters.

“The program has been helpful in a few instances, but it hasn’t reached its potential yet, and that is largely due to technical problems we are having, and hopefully we’ll get those resolved,” Paterson said.

“It is a viable tool,” he added, “but it’s not the panacea of all tools.”

He said the GPS pilot program is funded through the state.

Although tracking the hundreds, if not thousands, of possible high-risk gang members in San Bernardino County sounds like a good idea, officials must take into consideration the hefty cost and manpower involved, officials said.

For example, it may cost a little more than $8 a day to electronically monitor a parolee wearing a bracelet, but the real expense is in paying and training the parole agents who monitor them.

Bastarache, for instance, has his hands full with only 20 parolees at any given time. Whenever a parolee is in a prohibited area, decides to get rebellious and cut the bracelet from his or her leg, or fails to recharge the bracelet battery, Bastarache gets a text message on a pager he keeps. He must follow up, track down the parolee, then report the violation. It’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job.

“These guys are out nights and weekends,” said Abril, the parole administrator in San Bernardino. “You’re talking a lot of dollars.”

And although the ankle bracelets, which cost about $2,000 each, are a great tool for law enforcement, they can’t do it all, Abril said.

“It doesn’t substitute for manpower and police involvement,” he said.

26-Feb-07 2:00 PM

S.J. Sex Offenders Tethered to a Watchful Eye That Never Blinks

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Seated inside his cramped north Stockton apartment, Oscar Pelaez folded up his left pant leg and rolleddown his sock. The defrocked priest exposed a bulging ankle bracelet that, he complained last week, makes him feel like a leper.

This thing, when they put it onto me, reminds me of the day I was arrested and they started taking me to court,” said Pelaez, a 40-year-old Colombian native convicted in 2002 of molesting a 16-year-old Turlock boy.

“Knowing that you are marked, you have to cover it well.”

Yet there’s no hiding for Pelaez and other high-risk sex offenders released from prison on parole. Parole agents in San Joaquin County so far have fitted 39 other men like him with global positioning system units.

While that is just one-third of the county’s 120 high-risk sex offenders on parole, Sacramento has fitted all its 155 parolees whom officials fear might again commit rape or molest a child. Some other Central Valley counties, such as Fresno and Kern, monitor all their high-risk offenders as well.

Some San Joaquin County officials grumble that the county was shorted in its effort to protect its residents. But Bill Sessa, deputy press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said more GPS monitors are coming.

For two years, the state gradually has started fitting its 3,000 parolees such as Pelaez. While useful, Sessa said, the ankle bracelets, which bounce signals off a satellite to mark parolees’ movements, are just one tool for supervising them.

“Sex offenders are on the shortest leash and under the biggest microscope out of any group of parolees that we have, no matter if they’re on GPS or not,” he said.

Some counties might feel left out. The $10million pilot project put 500 GPS monitors on parolees. The electronic devices cost only about $10 each, but they is of no use without the elaborate computer system and trained parole agents, Sessa said.

“That’s why we’ve been putting it out in stages,” he said.

The governor’s proposed budget would allocate $30.5 million next year for GPS equipment and services to monitor them, with more in the next two years, Sessa said.

Stephen Taylor, a prosecutor in the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, said there is no time to waste when it comes to keeping a close eye on high-risk sex offenders.

Taylor, who prosecutes sex offenders, explained that before a convicted sex offender is released from prison, the inmate is evaluated to determine the likelihood he or she will commit another sex crime. Some of those are deemed high risk.

“When we say high risk, we’re not kidding,” Taylor said. “They’ve got issues. We have people who use rape as a coping mechanism for stress relief.”

The GPS monitors showed their worth this month when a 12-year-old girl vanished from her family’s Stockton home, launching an all-out police search.

Minutes after relatives reported her missing, parole agents in Stockton, armed with laptops, checked the movements of the county’s 40 parolees on GPS monitors, finding that none of them had gone into the girl’s neighborhood. They were immediately eliminated as suspects.

In the end, the girl was found. She said she wandered off on her own and was not abducted.

Richard Curtice, a Stockton parole agent supervising the highrisk sex offenders wearing GPS monitors, said his job changed dramatically in the past year when his office began using the ankle bracelets.

When Curtice started as a parole agent 17 years ago, he regularly knocked on parolees’ doors to check on them. If they decided to run, he would not know until the next time he visited.

Now he can look up their movements around the clock in addition to making personal checks. Curtice’s cell phone receives a text message whenever a parolee tampers with an ankle bracelet.

One recent Saturday, he received a text message that a parolee had let the charge on his ankle bracelet go down. Further investigation on Curtice’s laptop revealed that the parolee had broken curfew.

“Once we lost contact with him, we issued a warrant (for his arrest) right away,” Curtice said.

Michael Risher, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said he worries that the privacy of parolees might be violated by having somebodywatch them around the clock.

Even parolees have rights, he said, adding that the intrusion could prevent them from being able to move on with life, again becoming members of the community. The ever-present monitoring might be psychologically unsettling, he said.

“What we really want for somebody on parole is for them to have stability,” he said. “People with stability in their lives commit fewer crimes.

” Parolees such as Pelaez, the former priest, agree. Angered about wearing the GPS monitor, Pelaez said the only job he could find was working at night in a warehouse. Once somebody learns he was convicted of a sex crime, they do not want to hire him, he said.

Pelaez said he has taken responsibility for his crime, which he called a mistake. He spent more than two years in state prison and looked forward to starting a new life outside. Then his parole agent fitted the ankle bracelet on him.

“It’s part of our human life to have obstacles you have to overcome,” he said. “Life continues.”

Other paroled sex offenders see it differently. Jonathan Bracy, a 26-year-old man convicted for molesting a child younger than 10 in Merced, said the ankle bracelet keeps him in check.

“I’ve gotten used to it,” he said. “It kind of keeps me on guard, knowing they always know where I’m at.”

29-Jan-07 2:00 PM

SO Sent to Prison One Day after GPS Spots Parole Violations

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 19:00:00 GMT

The new GPS technology was tracking a high risk sex offender in Kern County, and spotted some serious parole violations on Wednesday. By Thursday, the man was back in prison.

The Global Positioning Satellite technology has been in use by the California Department of Corrections since 2005, it was keeping tabs on 24-year-old Brandon Lee Bigsby in Bakersfield.

On Wednesday, parole officers saw the device track Bigsby to a location in Taft, that’s a violation of his parole conditions since that’s where a victim lives.

Eyewitness News has been investigating how the new technology tracks sex offenders. Parolees on the program must wear an ankle device at all times. That device sends signals to satellites.

Watching those signals, parole agents can track exactly where an offender goes, when, and for how long. Bigsby was tracked to the 500 block of Warren Street in Taft.

Thursday, Kern County sheriff deputies were sent to check on the situation. “We went and found the parolee had been in the area, but had left,” Sgt. Martin Downs told Eyewitness News. “We also determined that he frequently used ‘My Space’ and that led us to the college library.”

The “My Space” web site is popular with teen-agers, and Eyewitness News found Bigsby’s page. It lists 85 “friends,” and about about a dozen say they’re under 18 years old.

The officers found out Bigsby got on the internet by using computers at public libraries, and when they went to the Taft College library an employee said they’d just found a device on the ground outside the door.

That device turned out to be the GPS ankle bracelet that Bigsby was supposed to keep on. State parole officials tell Eyewitness News, the GPS system sent out an alert as soon as the ankle device was cut off.

However, officers kept tracking Bigsby by his internet use, and quickly figured out he was now using a computer inside the Beale Library in Bakersfield. Parole agents headed to the Beale, and immediately arrested Bigsby there.

State prison officials say Bigsby was convicted for lewd acts with a victim under the age of 14, and sent to prison in June 2003.

He was sentenced to three years in prison, and was released to supervised parole after about a year and a half.

He was released on November 14, 2005. He was put on the GPS system about a month later on December 22, 2005.

Now returned to prison, Bigsby faces charges related to several parole violations. One of those violations is for cutting off the GPS ankle device.

Parole officials have told Eyewitness News one benefit to the GPS system is its use in cooperating with local police and sheriff ’s departments where parolees are living.

Kern Sheriff ’s Sgt. Martin Downs is impressed with how the technology worked in this case to keep close watch on a sex offender. “We know their propensity to re-commit these crimes. When we know where they’re at — you can tell what’s going on.”

15-Dec-06 1:00 PM

GPS monitors high risk sex offenders in Kern County

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:00:00 GMT

BAKERSFIELD—About 40 high risk sex offenders paroled
in Kern County are now under constant, high-tech supervision.
California Department of Corrections parole agents are using
global positioning satellite technology to monitor these parolees.
Eyewitness News started investigating supervision of high risk
sex offenders on parole after Darren Kawamoto was going to be
located in Kern County in 2004. At that time, state prisons
officials had just started a GPS pilot project.
The project is now running in Kern County, and Eyewitness
News has learned at least a couple of these offenders have been
returned to prison because parole violations were spotted using
the GPS program.
Agent Kelly Mason says he noticed something suspicious by
one of his offenders on the program. “He had a pattern, on
Tuesday nights he went to a particular residence,” says Mason.
“The second time I saw that, I went to the residence and
discovered that children resided at that residence.” The
offender’s conditions of parole said he could not be around
children. He was returned to prison.
With the GPS program, every movement of the offender is
tracked through a computer. The parolees wear an ankle device
that gives off signals which are tracked by satellites and sent to a
computer system.
Agents log on to the computer system, “They can see where the
offender went the prior day, the prior week, or prior month —
or even at that moment,” says Agent Derrick Carraway.
The program can set up “exclusion zones” where an offender is
not supposed to go — based on the conditions of his parole.
“We’ve had offenders who have gone to parks, colleges, they
also went to different elementary schools — places where they
should not be,” says Carraway.
The tracking is so precise, the agents know exactly where the
offender has been, for how long, and at what time.
Bakersfield parole agent Steve Struwe says computer tracking is
a valuable tool to prove violations. “There’s no doubt about
where they’ve been, or time they were there.”
One of his parolees was sent back to prison when the program
showed he had violated his parole curfew.
One of the offenders who’s on the GPS system in Kern County
says he actually agrees with the program, “I don’t have a
problem with it. It’s just ordered as part of my sentence.”
This parolee didn’t want his name used. The man said he’d
served a 12-year prison term, and was paroled six months ago.
Each parolee on the system wears a grey bracelet-like device on
his ankle at all times.
“It is a nuisance,” the offender told Eyewitness News. That
parolee says he doesn’t want anyone to notice he has the device
on his ankle, he makes sure his sock covers it.
The system can also be programmed to alert if it detects that an
offender has entered an “exclusion zone.” Agents can be called
immediately and system can be programmed to contact the
offender.
“The agent can let the offender know, if the GPS device
vibrates or pings — give me a call immediately,” says Carraway.
Statewide the prisons department now has more than 500 high
risk sex offenders on the GPS program. They have returned 105
offenders to prison for parole violations that were detected by
the program.
The prisons department hopes to eventually get all high risk sex
offender parolees into the GPS program. Agents say it’s one
more valuable tool to monitor these offenders.
“While the person is out there — the sex offender is on the
street — we don’t want any more victims.” says agent Carraway.
“If we can do that by utilizing all the tools that we have,
including GPS — then we’re doing our job.”

13-Dec-06 1:00 PM

Tracking Sex Offenders in Kern County - Video Article

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:00:00 GMT

13-Dec-06 11:00 AM

High-risk SO Tracked, Arrested - Video Article

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:00:00 GMT

10-Nov-06 2:00 PM

Sex Offender Arrested - Video Article

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:45:00 GMT

10-Nov-06 12:45 PM

High-risk Sex Offender Arrested - Video Article

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:00:00 GMT

10-Nov-06 12:00 PM

Tracking High Risk Sex Offenders - Video Article

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:00:00 GMT

10-Nov-06 11:00 AM

Sex Offender Tracked, Arrested - Video Article

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:00:00 GMT

10-Nov-06 11:00 AM

GPS Tracking Devices Strapped to Sex Offenders

Sat, 13 May 2006 17:00:00 GMT

PALMDALE — Satellite-tracking devices are being strapped
on the ankles of 40 paroled rapists and other high-risk sex
offenders in the Antelope Valley in the first such use of GPS
technology in Los Angeles County.

A little bit bigger than a computer mouse and weighing about
6 ounces, the device beams signals to an orbiting network of
satellites that give state parole agents a computerized record of
a parolee’s movements. If he or she ventures to a school or
playground or leaves a designated area, the device will
transmit a text message alerting his parole agent.

“We believe GPS will save the lives of children,” said state
Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, who is pushing a
November ballot measure that would mandate lifetime GPS
tracking for every sex offender leaving prison.

GPS technology is already tracking parolees all across the
United States.

A study in Florida, where GPS use began in 1998, found that
sex offenders wearing the devices were less likely to commit
new crimes or to disappear.

The devices are not a panacea — they will not send a police
officer racing to a school when a sex offender walks up to the
fence — but they are a deterrent, said Peggy Conway, editor
of the Journal of Offender Monitoring.

“There is no anonymity to a crime. They can be put at the scene
of a crime,” Conway said. “They know they will get caught.”

At a cost of $8.45 a day each, the GPS devices were used in a
pilot program tracking high-risk sex offenders in San Diego
County last July, and in October in Orange County.

More than 400 are now in use in parts of California, with a
state law approved last year boosting that to 2,500 over the
next four years.

About 45 of the parolees fitted with the devices so far have
been charged with violating parole for behavior including
being in unauthorized areas such as amusement parks or being
away from home after curfew.

In one case, a parolee was arrested after his GPS device
tracked him to a high school campus and near a women’s
locker room at the University of Redlands.

Overall, Los Angeles County has some 11,400 registered sex
offenders — enough so that a state Web site mapping each
offender’s location with a blue dot shows solid blue stretching
for miles across almost every area of the county.

Of the county’s sex offenders, 391 are parolees recently
released from prison and categorized by parole officials as high
risk because of violence, multiple offenses, multiple victims or
other factors.

Of the 391 high-risk sex-offender parolees, 43 live in the
Antelope Valley. That means the Antelope Valley has less than
4 percent of Los Angeles County’s population, but 11 percent
of its high-risk sex offenders on parole.

Antelope Valley was picked as a pilot area after state officials
agreed in January to stop sending parolees there unless they
had Valley connections predating their imprisonments.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Elaine Jennings said
she expects GPS use in metropolitan Los Angeles to start later
this year or early next year.

“The Antelope Valley has had a concern about parolees. There
was community involvement and we had good partners,”
Jennings said.

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said the Antelope Valley has
been allowed to become home to too many parolees — nearly
2,000 of all sorts, or 6 percent of the county total.

“We are a dumping ground,” said Ledford. “You get the
headlines at Disneyland, but this is where people live...We’re
fed up.”

The concern about sex offenders is state and nationwide.
California’s parole chief, Jim L’Etoile, either resigned or was
dismissed — officials won’t say which, citing personnel law —
after revelations that paroled sex offenders were placed in
motels and hotels near Disneyland.

The placements violated no laws, but officials moved four
parolees who lived in motels within a half-mile of the
amusement park. The men all wore GPS devices.

In the Nov. 7 election, California voters will vote on a
measure called Jessica’s Law, named for a Florida girl who was
abducted from her home and slain, that would require all
paroled and newly registered sex offenders to wear an
electronic tracking device for life.

The law would also bar them from living any closer than
2,000 feet from schools and parks, meaning many
neighborhoods would be off-limits but also shifting offenders
into other areas.

13-May-06 12:00 PM

Suspects Tracked Before Trials;Teen Wears GPS AnkleBracelet

Tue, 09 May 2006 17:00:00 GMT

In February, Andy Mendoza was arrested in a vehicular-
homicide case. The 15-year-old is accused of driving his car
into a ditch while he was drunk, killing an 18-year-old girl.
Mendoza is waiting for his day in Children’s Court, but he’s
not spending the time behind bars. He is studying for his
GED, working and playing soccer while being continually
watched by 24 satellites orbiting 12,000 miles overhead.
Tom Swisstack, director of the Bernalillo County Juvenile
Detention Center, says this approach makes better sense
with certain young people than simply locking them up.
“(We have) the potential of changing their lives instead of
them (eventually) being absorbed into the adult prison
lifestyle,” Swisstack said.
Mendoza wears one of 23 Global Positioning System ankle
bracelets that were leased five months ago with $73,000 in
state funds. Mendoza’s movements can be tracked in real
time on a computer screen with an accuracy of 30 yards,
Swisstack said.
A computer at the center is programmed to notify
authorities immediately if Mendoza is not where he is
supposed to be — something traditional ankle monitors
cannot do with such accuracy.
“I would have been locked up” without the GPS bracelet,
Mendoza said when he took a break from his job at
Computer Reruns. “It’s given me a second chance to show
them I’m trying to get my life on and not do anything
wrong.”
The bracelets are only a part of an intensive community
monitoring program that allows some offenders to stay out
of jail while they are awaiting adjudication, Swisstack said.
The Community Custody Program includes counseling, life
skills training, education and lots of hands-on supervision by
program personnel.
After being tested in Albuquerque, 11 of the bracelets were
sent to programs in other parts of the state about a month
ago, Swisstack said. He is expecting about 100 more to be
distributed statewide this year.
“It’s not a cure-all, but a tool you use to ratchet up
supervision of a child,” Swisstack said of the GPS bracelets.
In a portable building on the east end of the Bernalillo
detention center Monday, Yolanda Hall, an officer with the
community program, stared into a computer screen.
A map of the South Valley filled the screen, overlaid with the
locations and names of local teens with GPS bracelets. Hall
zoomed in on Mendoza’s name until a grainy satellite photo
of his workplace appeared. His monitor showed he was
traveling on a road just a few blocks away.
“He’s on his way to work,” Hall announced. “He’ll be
walking in this door,” she said, pointing to a spot on the
photo.
Mendoza said he’s grateful for the ankle bracelet, even
though it rubs his leg raw when he plays soccer.
“I prefer to get this much attention because I won’t party,”
Mendoza said. “I’m getting a lot of attention, and I know I’ll
do good.”

9-May-06 12:00 PM

Gang Trackers - Video Article

Sun, 07 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT

7-May-06 2:00 PM