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Thursday, December 31, 2009

Crime The Latest in Clemmons Failures

Posted by Eli Sanders on Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 1:30 PM

Just when you thought there might not be any more lapses to chronicle, it turns out that the Washington State Department of Corrections, which should have been monitoring Maurice Clemmons in the days before he shot four Lakewood police officers, didn't even know Clemmons had been released from jail.

The six days after Clemmons' release from jail represent a missed opportunity to avert tragedy, one in which he benefited from a critical lapse in DOC's oversight.

A review of records obtained by The Seattle Times under a public-disclosure request shows that Clemmons' community-corrections officer, who was new to the case, lost track of him. The Pierce County Jail didn't tell him Clemmons had been released. And an internal DOC computer system, set up to alert DOC officers when offenders under their watch get into trouble, doesn't track releases from county jails.

Comments (3) RSS

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It's worth bearing in mind that the huge caseloads, flurries of file reassignments, and part-time scheduling of DOC workers mentioned in the article will continue to be terrible challenges to effectiveness as we slash the agency's budget even deeper next year.

It's not easy to complain about lapses by an agency whose all-too-human staff we pile ever higher with serious responsibility while eroding the funding they need to do the job we expect.

Posted by gloomy gus on December 31, 2009 at 3:36 PM

yes, government workers are never at fault, pls. send us more money.

Posted by CIA LAgos (and separately, CIA Yemen branch) on December 31, 2009 at 4:57 PM

I'm sure this is Mike Huckabee's fault...

Posted by Seattle Hipster on January 1, 2010 at 8:04 AM