I read this article in the San Jose Mercury News called, “Mountain View soccer volunteer jailed for alleged sexual assault.” The article was about a man named Pedro Carbajal, who was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, lewd or lascivious acts on a child by force, violence, duress, menace and fear, and two counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14. These charges date back as far as 1996. His bail is set at two million dollars. During this time from 1996, Pedro has been running his own soccer league and Mountain View and the same police unit has been sponsoring his soccer team for a few years now. Since the arrest, the police station has fired and terminated Pedro’s soccer league. They also have been contacting the parents who children were in the league. Pedro will appear in court March 11.
I do not know if this is a good topic to talk about because there might not be any follow up articles in the near future. But the article caught my attention because it may me think about how the police says that sex offenders must register (Megan's Law) on a website when they move to a new neighborhood. And that they cannot live a certain number of feet from a school or playground. But how do the neighbors know when a sex offender moves in. Is there a newsletter that is put into your mailbox, which reads: In the daily neighborhood news 36 years old Bobby Lumkins, an ex-sex offender who likes to molest 5-year-old girls and videotape lewd acts against teenagers. No, no newsletter like this exists. So how can parents find out about these sick people? I mean the police had Pedro right under their nose. He was working side by side with the cops for years. Probably attending barbeque events, fundraisers, and along with his soccer games. It took the cops a little over a decade to pull up his file to find something wrong with him. I know there are probably websites to look up information on your friendly, neighbor sex offender. But who has time to look them up these days.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Pedro has never been accused or convicted in the past for sexual offenses. This is the first time he has ever faced such charges. The accusers are family members. There may be no truth to these allegations. He didn't register as sex offender because he doesn't have any prior convictions. I, for one, believe he is innocent.
ReplyDeleteSo, we have q little debate going on here . . .
ReplyDeleteAre you interested in the wider topic of child abuse, or in the ways that sex offenders are monitored in Santa Clara county -- both of those seem big enough to include a lot of different articles plus background info.
Cathy
To Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteOkay, thank you for commenting on my blog. Yes, you are entitled to your opinion. It seems like you are very passionate about this Pedro person, like you must have known him or something. But anyways I never say that I believe Pedro did it, but if he did that would be sad. And if I would pick this topic for my research paper for my class, I would probably pick a side that goes against what you believe may be the truth. You said yourself his own family members are the accusers. Why would your own family members accuse you of something if there weren't any truth to it? As for the reason he didn't register because he didn't have any prior convictions, my answer to that is most sex offenders don't register until they get caught and convicted. And I guess we just going to have to wait and see what happens.
To gaborblog:
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of changing my research topic this week because there were a lot of articles and news stories about child sexual abuse this week between students and teachers. It was a common thing in the papers this week, especially in this area San Jose and the Santa Clara area. The last story I heard about was the story of a teacher who use to teach in this area molested one of her students when she was 11 and she is a gym teacher. The police said they are getting the public involve since it happen a couple years back and the fact that they need more evidence. But it seems like it is a good topic but you will have to find a strong research question to figure out what you going to write about it because this paper can take you in many directions.