EVERETT — Authorities in Snohomish County formed a task force this fall to check the accuracy of sex offender registries and to find fugitive sex offenders.
The task force includes an Everett Police Department detective, a Snohomish County sheriff’s detective and a county prosecutor. It’s funded through a $310,000 state grant.
“If we’re going to tell sex offenders that we’re going to make you register and verify your address, we’d better do that,” said Donald Pierce, executive director of Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. “It heightens the sense that somebody is interested in where they are.”
The countywide effort follows a raft of new state laws spurred by the 2007 kidnapping, rape and murder of Zina Linnik, a 12-year-old Tacoma girl whose killer is a convicted sex offender who didn’t register his address with police.
After that case, Gov. Chris Gregoire made $5 million available to local law enforcement agencies to pay for in-person visits of sex offenders. That money is paying the county task force.
Another $3.2 million also pays for other ways to track sex offenders, including satellite tracking and a redesign of the state’s sex offender Web site, which now includes an option for residents to receive an e-mail notification when a sex offender moves into their community.
While Everett police officers have routinely checked on sex offenders, the work until recently was spread across the department’s patrol division, said Everett police spokesman Sgt. Robert Goetz.
Now, a single detective can focus on much of the work.
Everett police detective James Collier, who is assigned to the task force, said that familiarity with individual sex offenders can result in fewer people falling through the cracks.
“We’re not just looking at throwing bodies in prison,” he said.
If a person’s deadline for registering is fast approaching, an officer might reach out to remind them. Not only could that spare the person from a potential felony, it could also save taxpayers the expense of incarceration and court fees.
It would also improve the public’s knowledge of sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.
The task force has averaged an arrest per week since it was formed, Collier said.
As of Wednesday, there were 1,645 registered sex offenders living in Snohomish County, 94 of whom are Level 3, or considered at high risk of re-offending.
Last week, the task force, working with the U.S. Marshals Service, apprehended a fugitive sex offender from Colorado who was hiding out at his mother’s home near Everett.
Collier said the man was No. 2 on the marshals service’s most-wanted list.
Members of the task force will also verify that homeless sex offenders are living where they say they are.
Under state law, homeless sex offenders have more stringent reporting requirements than those who live in homes or apartments.
In April, David J. Torrence was released from prison with no place to stay. He was ordered to sleep under a bridge along U.S. 2 at the east side of Snohomish. He triggered a nationwide manhunt after he cut off a GPS tracking device and disappeared. Torrence was later caught in Arkansas, where he was living with family.
The state now says it has improved how it notifies the public about homeless sex offenders and sex offenders who fail to register, such as Torrence.
The state’s push also mirrors a federal effort to verify sex offenders’ addresses. The marshals service in recent years has substantially increased the number of arrests of sex offenders who have outstanding warrants for failing to register their current addresses.
The agency conducted 2,621 investigations last year, up from 381 in 2004, according to a new report by the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.
The 110-page report on sex offender registration found national registries for offenders are often incomplete and inaccurate, undermining their effectiveness for the public and law enforcement.
Earlier this month, an Everett task force on sex offenders issued a report urging the state to, among other things, take steps to reduce the concentration of registered sex offenders allowed to live in residential neighborhoods, and to create new housing choices.
It also encouraged the state to improve the public’s access to information about people who commit sex crimes and to evaluate whether some cities house a disproportionate concentration of sex offenders.
City officials have already met with state lawmakers and are pursuing both direct legislation and policy change recommendations by the newly formed Sex Offender Policy Board.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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