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Operation Watch Dog keeps eye on local sex offenders |
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Thursday, 21 January 2010 |
There are 115 sex offenders living in Saline County who may or may not be in compliance with state laws, local authorities say.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, several local law enforcement agencies joined up for “Operation Watch Dog” to make sure all the county’s resident sex offenders are, in fact, abiding by the rules. If not, they get a free trip to the Saline County jail.
Over the past two days, officers from Benton and Bryant police departments, the Saline County Sheriffs Office and U.S. Marshals formed 16 teams and, armed with the addresses of all 115 reported sex offense violators — as well as handcuffs, communication devices, Tasers and other police tools — the officers’ mission was simple.
“We are going to first make sure the offenders are living where they say they are,” Sheriff Lt. Mike Frost said before heading out Wednesday. “We need to make sure they aren’t living too close to areas where children are present, and we’ll see if we can find any pornographic material that will make them not compliant.”
According to state law, sex offenders cannot live within 2,000 feet of a school, public park, youth center or daycare center. Sex offenders also have to register and verify their address with the Arkansas Crime Information Center.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, officers verified that 65 registered sex offenders are in compliance. But at least 10 offenders were arrested over the two days, and though some were arrested for issues not related to sex crimes such as outstanding warrants, most of the arrests were for noncompliance, police said. As for the other sex offenders who were found to be not in compliance, but were not found at their registered addresses, officers have written up warrants for their arrests.
“We have officers who check up with sex offenders on a daily basis to ensure they are following state laws, but this is the first time we have conducted a sex offender search on this kind of scale,” Benton Police Lt. Kevin Russell said.
Frost says a primary reason for the multi-jurisdictional task force of Operation Watch Dog is due to the Jaycee Dugar case in California in 2009. in that case, California officers checked the home of a registered sex offender and left finding no evidence of a man being in noncompliance. Not long after, the 29-year-old Dugar was found hidden in the backyard of the registered sex offender’s home, 18 years after she originally disappeared.
“The officers were not thorough enough in that case,” Frost said. “We are going to be very thorough in Saline County.”
Sheriff Bruce Pennington also noted that making sure sex offenders remain in compliance will not end with Operation Watch Dog.
“We don’t take this lightly,” he said. “We may not do a multi-jurisdictional approach all the time, but we will always continue to be aggressive in the search for sex offenders and make sure they are abiding by the laws.”
Many of the officers, such as Benton Detective Jennifer Tarvin, also have another weapon or too at their disposal: Several officers were recently federalized by the U.S. Marshals Office, which gives them power to cross jurisdictional, county and state lines to retrieve a suspect.
“The (registered sex offenders) don’t know when I or others will come visit them,” Tarvin said. “And now that many of us don’t have any jurisdictional restraints, we’ll find them.”
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