From: My Auburn, http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/207814.html
A SMALL ROOM CROWDED WITH FEAR AND DESPERATION
This is the twenty-fifth in a series of articles on Auburn-area homeless people, written by local attorney, author, and Sierra College Instructor, Bob Litchfield.
A week or two after I first interviewed Jack and Ernie, the two homeless registered sex offenders described in article number fourteen in this series, I ran into the two men again. This time, they were in a small room that was crowed with fear and desperation. Something has changed since the last time I saw them. Something big.
Three local homeless camps where “290" registered sex offenders camped have been attacked by a group of vigilante thugs.
Two of the 290 homeless people have been attacked and beaten. Tents have been trashed. Personal property has been taken, or destroyed. People were sprayed in the face with Raid and insect repellant, and were warned to get out of town.
One 290 homeless man named Gary was badly beaten. His wife was with him at the time. When she jumped on the back of one of the attackers and tried to pull the attacker off of her husband, one of the attackers punched her in the face, and broke her nose.
Jack and Ernie are both homeless “290" registered sex offenders. If you want to read what I wrote about them earlier, it is in article number fourteen in this series. That article is entitled, “Torturing Auburn’s Homeless Registered Sex Offenders - A Great Idea?”
Things were bad enough for Jack and Ernie back when I wrote that first article. Now, thing are worse.
Jack is the taller, white man, and Ernie is the small, black man who walks with a cane because he has two stints in his leg from having peripheral artery disease.
With vigilantes attacking and beating local homeless registered sex offenders, Jack and Ernie are both really afraid. Mostly, they are worried about Ernie.
They have been allowed the temporary use of a small room. As I come into the room, Jack is seated in front of a low coffee table, making phone calls on his cell phone. He is trying to find someone... anyone, who can provide Ernie with some shelter. Jack may be the only real friend that Ernie has, and Jack is worried for Ernie’s safety.
There is only one place in all of Placer County that will rent a place to live to a registered sex offender. The cost is $500 per person per month.
Neither Jack nor Ernie have any money, nor any hope of obtaining employment, as registered sex offenders. As a condition of their probation, they are not allowed to leave this area, and they are required to wear GPS satellite ankle monitors.
Jack, who is the white man, has been a Mormon all his life, and has been attending the local Mormon Church. When he explains his dangerous predicament to the people at his church, the church puts up the $500 a month that Jack needs to get off the street before the vigilante thugs can find him.
You say whatever else you want about the Mormon Church, but they take care of their own.
So, the white man finds shelter.
But the small, black man cannot find any shelter here in Auburn.
Ernie’s situation is made worse by the fact that his peripheral artery disease makes it hard for him to walk. He cannot hike the two or three miles between the things he needs in town every day (like a re-charge of the battery in his ankle monitor) and the best-hidden homeless campsites, which are located far out of town.
So, Jack is making phone calls, trying to find some shelter for Ernie.
But there is no shelter to be found.
While Jack makes phone calls, Ernie and I sit and talk.
Ernie is truly scared. He is also frustrated, and a bit angry. He says to me, “If those vigilantes come to get me, I’m going to do what ever I have to do to stay alive.”
Looking at his small size, and his limp and his cane, it sounds like a pretty empty threat. But it makes me worry for him even more. If he tries to defend himself, he’ll probably just provoke a more severe beating.
Ernie eventually tells me about the bad things that he has done that resulted in his criminal convictions. I cannot be absolutely certain, but I am inclined to believe that Ernie told me the truth about what he has done.
The things that Ernie did were bad. There is no question about that.
But as I sit and think about it, it does not seem to me that the things that Ernie did are anywhere near as bad as the things that were done by the rich, white lawyer I knew in Oregon who went to jail for having sex with his fourteen-year-old daughter.
When that rich, white lawyer got out of jail, I don’t believe that he went onto any registered sex offender list.
In fact, the Oregon State Bar reinstated that lawyer’s license to practice law. The Oregon State Bar said that this lawyer’s acts of moral turpitude were not the kind of acts of moral turpitude that might adversely impact the interests his clients.
That was the day that I lost faith in the ability of lawyers and judges to police their own ranks.
I think about it some more. It does not appear to me that the bad things that Ernie did are any worse than the bad things done by one former foothills District Attorney, or possibly even by one former judge. I never saw that District Attorney or that judge get placed on a list that condemned them to social and economic death for the rest of their lives. But then again, both of them were powerful, financially-successful, white men.
I find myself wishing that I had the time and the resources available to count all of the 63,000 people on California’s registered sex offender list, to see how many of them are successful white people who could afford to hire good private lawyers, and how many of them are poor blacks and hispanics who were told by some over-worked and marginally-competent public defender to “take the deal” without even the benefit of a jury trial.
And of course, I find myself getting a little angry.
As Ernie talks to me, he often looks me straight in the eye. It is an engaging thing about him. Ernie has deep, soulful eyes.
Today, his eyes also show his fear, and his sense of helplessness.
I remember a story I read about an interview with Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was standing between the cots at her medical treatment facility for the poorest of the poor, rescued from the streets of Calcutta. She was explaining to the interviewer that when the impoverished sick people were brought in off of the streets, they were usually filthy dirty, and often covered with sores... sometimes even sores draining with puss.
Mother Teresa said that the first thing that her Sisters do is give the new patients a bath and clean them up.
Then she said, “Of course, when the person is so covered with draining sores and smells so bad that the Sisters just can’t stand it, then I do it myself.”
At that point, Mother Teresa gestured with her hand toward some of the patients who were lying on cots nearby and said, “I have to do it. Because after all, I never know for sure which one of these poor, sick people might be Jesus, in one of his distressing disguises.”
I look into Ernie’s deep, soulful eyes. He is a black, homeless, registered sex offender... the most unwanted of all the unwanted. As I continue to look into his eyes, I find myself wondering whether or not Ernie might be Jesus, in one of his distressing disguises.
I spend the next week making phone calls and sending emails, trying to find some kind of shelter for Ernie. I talk to friends, to service clubs, to the Pastors of Churches. I talk to the leaders of National Advocacy Groups who are attempting to reform the sex offender registration laws. (These people contacted me after they read the first article that I wrote about Jack and Ernie.)
None of them have any shelter for Ernie.
The churches have all kinds of programs to help the homeless. Some even have wonderful half-way houses for drug addicts.
But as soon as I mention the words “registered sex offender,” even the churches quickly turn Ernie away.
“We have children nearby,” they say.
They don’t have to say anything more than that. I understand.
But Ernie’s life is still in danger.
For Ernie, there is no room at the Inn.
I consider the possibility of paying for Ernie’s shelter out of my own pocket. But that won’t work. On a small-town lawyer’s income, the most that I could hope to buy for Ernie would be one month of shelter, and after that, he’d be back out on the street.
After about a week, I give up trying. I surrender to the fact that without God’s help, I’m not going to be able to make this happen.
If Ernie is, in fact, Jesus in one of his distressing disguises, then I have let Him down.
But then again, so have you.
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