Pearl -clutching OpEd by Zach Husted of Victoria, MN claims kids are pissing themselves over Registrant placement

If you want to see the dumbest example of Chicken Little writing, read the last paragraph. If I had to take a guess, he ate every oyster he could find until he got enough pearls to make a necklace so that he may clutch them. 

https://www.swnewsmedia.com/chanhassen_villager/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/letter-work-toward-a-better-minnesota/article_bd0aacdd-4259-5def-b449-edceb26aa7ee.html

Letter: Work toward a better Minnesota

Mark Olson Jul 22, 2021 

Editor’s note: The author submitted the following letter on behalf of Wassermann neighbors in response to: “Victoria neighborhood protests level 3 sex offender.”

Minnesota uses a determinate sentencing model, whereby a level 3 child predator is serving his last one-third of his sentence among 700-plus children within a 1.5-mile radius of his residence.

The DOC informed our community they have a “density of victim” factor when reviewing placements, and determined on July 2 that this factor will remain arbitrary. In other words, the DOC does not have any legal responsibility to review the location of a level 3 child predator when it comes to the density of children living near his residence.

This community was given two business days of notice, that a level three child predator, who has a history of “sexualiz[ing] 90% of minor females” and “after three years of treatment is scoring at high risk to reoffend” (according to public court record, county attorney’s summation letter) will be living among their children.

Moreover, the Department of Corrections is minimizing the fact that he was leveled just prior to release — as the highest risk of reoffending — when it states, “… we have an extremely successful record working with this type of clientele.”

Our community appreciates the difficult position the DOC is in when it comes to lack of funding and limited resources for placing level 3 child predators, yet the DOC seems to be villainizing a community when claiming people are not giving him “the opportunity to succeed.” Our community wants nothing more than for the DOC’s “clientele” to be rehabilitated, and that is just the point. Approve a placement that will foster his rehabilitation.

How can the DOC find it ‘acceptable’ to approve a level 3 child predator’s residence surrounded by a high density of children resembling his previous victims, and when the sentencing judge states in a previous publication “The bottom line is this, [y]ou are not allowed to have contact with children period.”

Last week’s article includes a statement to our community, wanting the level 3 child predator to have an “unobstructed opportunity to succeed or fail on his own.”

How can failure be observed and reported without 1:1 supervision of potential non-contact sexual probation violations, or when the residence is allowed to record our children playing in their own backyards? Or, does failure come at the expense of another innocent child? There is no “fail on his own” with those horrifying circumstances, and failure is perpetuated in the lives of his victims indefinitely.

Lastly, our community is aware that only more level 3 child predators will be released this year, the next, and the following. It is our commitment to work with legislators such as Rep. Jim Nash, Rep. Greg Boe, and Sen. Julia Coleman to provide a framework for the DOC when placing level 3 child predators in the future.

As we watch our neighborhood children have night terrors, pee themselves in their own home, start antidepressants, see therapists, are unable to have use, enjoyment, tranquility in their own backyards, we will continue to work towards a better Minnesota that can find a more acceptable process than tormenting our children.

Zach Husted

Victoria