Litchfield Independent Review - Sheriff - Comments

An update: Blom was charged

Kristin Holtz — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:53:38 -0500

An update:

Blom was charged in Meeker County District Court Friday with felony counts of 3rd degree drugs sale of a phencyclidine or hallucinogen and two counts of 5th degree possession of marijuana. He also was charged with a felony count of fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle and a misdemeanor of driving after suspension of license. Bail was set at $200,000.

Kristin Holtz. staff writer, Litchfield Independent Review.

The Minnesota State Patrol

Kristin Holtz — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:10:29 -0500

The Minnesota State Patrol is now reporting Thompson died from injuries sustained in the crash.

The State Patrol released

Kristin Holtz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:21:51 -0500

The State Patrol released the name of the woman killed in the crash Monday. She is Kelsey Eberle, 22, of Maple Grove.

The National Weather Service

Kristin Holtz — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:59:26 -0500

The National Weather Service said it received several reports of tornadoes beginning in the Alexandria area to Meeker County. In a news item on its Web site today, the Weather Service said atmospheric conditions were too dry for tornadoes and the spotted reports were actually "gustnadoes."

"A gustnado is a rotating column of air that forms as a result of turbulence along a thunderstorm gust front boundary. Gustnadoes are associated with shelf clouds, a cloud structure that is often confused with a wall cloud, which is sometimes a tornadic cloud feature. A gustnado is not a tornado, and it is not dangerous.

"On Saturday evening, the gust front boundary was clearly evident in radar data from the Chanhassen Doppler radar, and often, many of the reports occurred several miles ahead of the main area of precipitation with the squall line, which is where the gust front was located. As the shelf cloud associated with the squall line moved over the NWS office in Chanhassen, meteorologists observed the turbulence within it, seeing how it could be confused with a more dangerous wall cloud feature and consequently, result in the volume of tornado reports."

Source: www.crh.noaa.gov/mpx, Top News of the Day

I am glad that they are

randay91 — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:57:33 -0500

I am glad that they are taking this seriously...what kind of person calls and threatens people like that...goodness! Would it have not been easier to just pay your tax....

Well first I looked his

randay91 — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:53:32 -0500

Well first I looked his record up with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. However you can run a search within the BCA website of no compliant registrants. (Wink) a good investigator always knows you can bypass lack of info by going up to MEEKER County courthouse....search his name in the system at the public computer in court administration...now you have his full name and his date of birth....you will then be able to find him in the public BCA website....however that info is not totally public...you have to be lawenforcement at times to access total information...however there is enough there to tell a person (in the public site) who is educated in the area of how the judicial systems charges and convictions as to the classification.
A first degree charge, as far as the charge when it goes to the prosecuting charge is a "serious felony" a charge in the second degree is a felony, as so forth ...it goes through a 3rd degree, 4th degree and last a fifth degree....(are you understanding this? Baed in the degree is based on the level of offender, in addition to other precursers such as the info found during a pre-release assessment and recommendations of the parolee evaluation. You just need to know how to look into all this...and I do...hope this helps you. Being as he is a life time registrant...means he is very likley to reofend. (Typically this will happen when it is a child molestation case.)

I also (Hint) did a search of local newspaper articals pretaining to his case in Wisconsin during the year it occured.

My thing is I do not always believe what I'm told...I look for facts and wait until I have the facts in front of me before I act. I'm not slamming anyone...I just knew that based on MN statute law enforcement would have been imune to a legal reaction had they notified the public because he was non compliant for more than 30 days. There is a non-compliant clause within the MN statute as I posted earlier...again it says as long as the agency acts in good faith in notifying the public. I know they can not alert everyone...but it would be nice to know that the schools and daycares be alerted.

I am very proactive when it comes to sex offenders in communities. It is my opinion (no slamming of Meeker county here at all) that legislators need to re-evaluate their laws nation wide as to notification processes.

What I do not understand is why they are not charging this man in addition to the pulling of the gun..with a violation of MN's registered sex offender laws. They can charge him with that too, he was in violation of registering and failing to report his residence here...based on your artical...back in December. (if I remember correctly).

Anyway hope this helps. The question to you is are you just a staff writer? Or do you consider yourself an investigative type reporter? I think your paper could use a good investigative reporter :) Someone I know who is influencial in this community told me to tell Brent to look into this particular artical and investigate further.

Randay91, can you give me a

Kristin Holtz — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:22:31 -0500

Randay91, can you give me a hand? I've been researching this story for a week and looked at the Wisconsin DOC registry page multiple times, but I can't find where is says Pitts is a "level II" offender. Where did you track down what level of offender he is?

I know he was convicted of second degree criminal sexual assault but I don't think that transfers into a level II designation.

Kristin Holtz is a staff writer for the Independent Review.

Okay now I know this is

randay91 — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:47:16 -0500

Okay now I know this is bogus. Wisconsin has his as convicted of a level II: thus lifetime registrant. In December when they investigated and knew who he was they would have contacted WI and found this out thus should have and could have notified us based on MN Statute as follows>>>>>>>>> (this is with regard to registered offenders for other states!!!!!
Evidently they are trying to make excuses as to why we were not notified?????? Sorry not wanting to stir things up...I just want accurate informtion, not misleading information....
Subd. 7a. Availability of information on offenders who are out of compliance with
registration law. (a) The bureau may make information available to the public about offenders
who are 16 years of age or older and who are out of compliance with this section for 30 days.
This information
may be made available to the public through electronic, computerized, or other accessible means.

(d) The bureau is immune from any civil or criminal liability that might otherwise arise,
based on the accuracy or completeness of any information made public under this subdivision, if
the bureau acts in good faith.
source: https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/statutes/?id=243.166, accessed 03/20/2008.

Appears that we need some

randay91 — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:15:21 -0500

Appears that we need some comprehensive legislation review on registerd sex offenders and how they allow alerts on a state by state level.

I find myself wanting to look into this more, because I would think that although sex offenders are required to register, it would not matter what state they are in to when it comes down to notifying the public of a registerd sex offender. Meeker County...the state of MN for that matter should be have the authority to alert the community he is in because he was convicted in the Justice System of his crime.

This shows how we loose offenders, there are so many loop holes it isn unreal. We need a serious over haul in this area.

Hypothetically speaking what would we have we done here in Meeker, had although authorities knew who he was, and could not alert the community, and he had preyed on our children? Because of silly data protection laws, we would not be warned and our children would have suffered.
This is not rite. Not right at all. Meeker should have been able to alert, and so should all the other states across America!

Some of the questions posted

Kristin Holtz — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:46:13 -0500

Some of the questions posted by readers are addressed in the Independent Review's March 20 print edition story, "Sex offender heads to court after standoff." In the story, Meeker County Sheriff's Department addresses reasons why the department could not notify the public, including data privacy laws and an ongoing investigation. Click here to go to the story: http://www.independentreview.net/sex-offender-heads-court-after-standoff...

Kristin Holtz is a staff writer with the Independent Review.

Sapperion, first I want

LoriM — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:27:15 -0500

Sapperion, first I want toTHANK YOU for serving this country!!! We will stand watch here while you are protecting and serving during your deployment!!!!

I have the utmost respect for law enforcement and the jobs they do everyday to protect us!!! It is the dirtballs in the department that give others a bad name. Hopefully soon those scumbags will be gone and will be replaced with others who work with integrity!! I have a BA in Criminal Justice and understand how screwed up our judicial system is which is one reason that I have a real bad taste in my mouth for the judges in this county and the scumbags in the department.

I believe that our police department is doing the best they can with what they have and I have the utmost respect for them. I don't blame them for not alerting us to the fact that their was a sex offender on the loose. I blame the COUNTY Sheriff's Department as much as I blame the judicial system that released that offender. The Sherrif's Department is supposed to serve and protect the COUNTY and the judicial system needs to start thinking about protecting the communiites that they release these offenders into!!

With that being said, I would rather be warned about the missing sex offender than not know at all!!! Common sense tells me to explain to my kids about creeps like this and stranger danger anyway, but the knowledge that an offender was in the area would have been appreciated. Knowing that this creep was right next door really hit a nerve with me. Let's hope they lock him back up for many years!!!!

well they do micro chip our

Civil Srevant — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:17:01 -0500

well they do micro chip our animals at the vets office if you want it However I dont think that would ever fly with the public. They would fear that our children would be next and the goverenment would track our where abouts and blah, blah ,blah,but if it were used to track criminals well I bet that could be a good way to. Just a simple injection just under the skin and out comes a micro chip with identifying info incripted on it to track them by.I would make sure it was done in a very private place so it would really hurt if one were to attempt to remove it! much like a form of birth controll once used.I agree with randay91 and lorim. To bad sapperion looks like you have been out voted here and besides your off protecting another country not watching your nieghborhood we are!!The fact is we should have been notified. law enforcement failed the public in this way.I believe if not for the public envolvment this county could be in worse trouble, our law enforcement isnt to be trusted in my opinion and no one can change my mind about that.I dont trust them for very valid reasons so there fore they cant be trusted with preforming thier duty's to the public. Just wait until the FBI makes that announcement has everyone forgot already that the county is under investigation? And the possibility's of "why" I have heard all kinds of skuttlebutt and most are pointing fingers right to that office.Keep us protected? I dont think so. I would rather trust my nieghbors thank you.

One of the best forms of

randay91 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:33:00 -0500

One of the best forms of resources for the police is to notify the public. Police cannot be everywere all the time, if we can give out Amber Alerts when a child goes missing across the US then we certainly should be able to give out Molerster on the Run alerts everytime a registered sex offender goes missing! It is that simple, they can focus on where the offender is going next and they can use the public to find them! This is type of public involvement has been around for years, its called COP (Community Orriented Policing) which means that the police agencies utilize the communities inhabitants to fight crime, however not all communities utilize this, our's sure does not, we consider the smalling things like DARE programs COP. In Litchfield where we have one of the manmy large Meth problems in the state we do not have community awareness programs not educational programs, and this state does not recognize the nation wide Red Ribbon Week. Why is this. We do not have a drug court established here either as far as I know, diversion programs yes but not actual drug courts. And we should.
I've often wanted to start a community watch program, but never got an answer back from anyone in office downtown telling me how to go about starting one.

The best thing we can do as a community is care, and speak out. Without people who speak out reformation would never happen in this country!

I agree. Generally speaking

randay91 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:20:17 -0500

I agree. Generally speaking a shorter "leash" should be kept on registered sex offenders.
(I has to say that I am a Criminal Justice Student about to graduate is September and being one I have to say that it is true that Americans Crime Prevention programs are in need of serious overhauling, it is a known fact.) I wonder often why they do not make registerd sex offenders wear ankle bracelets so they do not loose track of them so often!! Think of the revenue this would bring in! It would not be a violation of the constitutioin either, as the criminal has already been convicted. It can be a form of condtion of release based on the offenders criminal act. I'm not talking petty offenders but rapists and child molesters, absolutly! Otherwise I think that chemical castration should be mandatory!

The scarier thing is that

LoriM — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:42:25 -0500

The scarier thing is that the Wisconsin law enforcement/DOC should have been aware that this offender had friends in Litchfield so that they could have looked here. Had the law enforcement center put out a poster of this man I could have let them know that I had seen him several times at the house next door. We have new neighbors that moved in last fall who we do not know. This offender visited them several times and I believe was also hiding out there within days before his arrest. I have children as well as this neighbor. I do not know how long this neighbor has known this creep but he would have been picked up last fall if I had known he was a missing offender!! That to me is scary, he was right smack dab in the center of Litchfield, just blocks from St. Philips school and with bus stops all over the area as well as neighborhood children! I hope this creep stays locked up for a very very long time!!!