Four days in May set stage for Sunday's tragedy

[tabatha]

Over four days in May, Maurice Clemmons' behavior and mental state deteriorated. Family members worried he had gone crazy, that he was verging on collapse. His conduct became so erratic — punching a sheriff's deputy, forcing relatives to strip naked, according to police reports — that authorities eventually charged him with eight felonies, including one count of child rape.

Still, at the end of those four days, Clemmons wound up on the loose — a delusional man with a propensity for violence, who had managed to escape the grip of authorities.

What happened in those four days — and in the months that followed — reflects a system governed by formula and misguided incentives.

That legal system, both in Arkansas and Washington, failed to account for the entirety of Clemmons' violence and his disdain for the law. Individual crimes, viewed in isolation, trumped a long and disturbing pattern of warning signs.

As a result, Clemmons walked out of jail Nov. 23. A week later, he was on the run again — this time accused of shooting and killing four Lakewood police officers in a Parkland coffee shop, in one of the most horrific crimes in Puget Sound history.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010392869_shootingjustice01m.html

[SoCalDem]

1. The sad fact is that we don't really know how to manage our criminal population

we have to give them rights, because until they are convicted, they are technically "innocent"..

if we assign bail and they meet it, we have to let them out..

criminals are famous for not following rules, so while out on bail, they are unlikely to modify their bad behavior.

if we deny them bail, we have to house them, feed them, lawyer them, for a long time, and they may still walk..

if they get convicted, they end up living long lives in jail, at the expense of all of us, while their victims remain dead or permanently injured...lives ruined forever..often without medical care, while the criminal gets medical care.

a conundrum.

[theoldman]

2. The problem is we have different laws in 50 states.

All a criminal has to do is move to another state. Doctors and lawyers do it all of the time to start with a clean record. If they can do it why would a common criminal not do the same. Our jails and prisons are filled with guys who smoked a little weed so there is no room for rapists and murderers.