Law requires little supervision of high-risk homeless sex offenders
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PORTLAND, Ore. – How can a man just released from a hospital for sexual psychopaths and a history of snatching teenage girls off the street be allowed to roam free on the streets of Portland?
Gordon Michael Strauss is that man, and he's now homeless and living in Portland. He was convicted of four rapes since the early 1980s, and he grabbed two of his victims right off the street.
He's served his time in prison for his convictions and spent time in a Washington mental health hospital.
But he's not on supervised probation and he only has to check in with police once a year, around his birthday, unless he admits to moving. Under Oregon law there are no special check-in requirements for homeless sex offenders like there are in Washington. In that state homeless sex offenders have to check in with their county every week.
One Portland police officer believes the more lenient Oregon laws attract more homeless sex offenders.
“We have sex offenders moving from all over the country to our city to be homeless here,” said Officer Sara Clark. “We’ve had guys move up from sunny San Diego in December to be homeless in our city.”
She said she would like to see stricter laws and having a law like the one in Washington requiring homeless sex offenders to check in every week could help but it’s tough on resources.
“For them to come in weekly to check in, we’d have a line out the door every day,” Clark said. “(There are) so many sex offenders, a huge homeless population and not enough of us.”
Also, a lack of resources on the state level contributes to a delay in getting sex offenders, like Strauss, into the system. Right now Strauss is not listed on the state’s online Sex Offender Inquiry System and it could be another year before he is in the system.
But even without the delay, less than half of the registered sex offenders deemed predatory and high risk are posted online, and that’s because of requirements under Oregon law.
Strauss registered at Ninth and Lovejoy. He was not seen by a KATU News crew Friday. He can legally go wherever he wants as long as he comes back to the Pearl District downtown area and lives within a 10-block radius.
In the meantime, police just want to make the public aware that Strauss is free and could be dangerous.
We already lock up more people than any country on earth even Russia or China locks up less people.  It doesn't look like locking people up  is the answer otherwise we would't have all the problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
This Is why our world is so fucked up with these psycho molesters and rapist   !!!! Our Justice System Lets a mutherfucker like this wounder the streets 10 years after his crimes to be homeless and have no way of keeping track of this parasite....and they would rather house people with harmless marijuana charges or petty crimes....WOW...I am discussed by this.............................. Â
Well, he has been identified. Â We all know what he looks like now. Â Who is going to be the productive citizen to remove this filth from our streets?
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Might I suggest a fierce punch in the face from every person who sees this trash on our streets. Â Let him know good and well his kind are NOT WELCOME HERE. Â
I do not condone vigilantism, let that be clear.
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It just seems to me that the "system" is turning these people out in the hopes that "someone else" will deal with the problem. Â That IS the problem!
HEY! Charlie Hales! HERE'S an opportunity for you to get your face out there and do something that's actually meaningful for the City of Portland. You know, the people who elected you. Why don't you propose some legislation? Gah.
Something wrong here when a convicted sex offender who has proven not to be redeemable to be reinserted into lawful society is allowed to roam freely without supervision, but legal owners of firearms are continually threatened with new laws against possession of firearms. Address the societal problems that exist, not the ones that arise because of aberrant behavior committed by those who should have been better supervised!
For offenders of any kind, the more time they have spent behind bars, the more likely they are going to return. Â Who is going to want to work hard in their lives to make it better, when they could get three square meals a day, cable, clean laundry, and all the perks footed by the taxpayers? Â Not to mention, that with their mentality, they'll be back anyways. Â This is what I don't understand. Â We spend all of this money on filth, when this rehabilitation (job training, etc.) can go to the unemployed to get them back on their feet instead. Â But no. Â We let those people go, because apparently, preventing good people from falling through the cracks, is not as important as giving offenders second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. chances. Â We pay for their college educations behind bars, while the average Joe, is stuck in a minimum wage job. Â
"But he's not on supervised probation and he only has to check in with police once a year, around his birthday, unless he admits to moving. Under Oregon law there are no special check-in requirements for homeless sex offenders like there are in Washington."
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And that's why we have such a horrible problem in Oregon.
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OK, Lawmakers - Get this under control. Quit fueling the idea that they can "rehabilitate". No way. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Keep fooling me? Yeah, I'll put my head in the hole and pretend it doesn't happen.Â
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Doesn't work.
This guy has to check in once a month, and is under no other supervision, yet they want to strip away the rights of the law abiding citizen. Yeah that makes a bundle of sense.
@Jeremy Once a year, leaving him to prey upon victims 364 days a year.
"Â How can a man just released from a hospital for sexual psychopaths and a history of snatching teenage girls off the street be allowed to roam free on the streets of Portland?"
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Habeas corpus.
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The press really asks some stupid questions.
So let me get this straight.......I am suppose to register my firearms but habitual rapists can roam the streets.Â
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 @Fed up Fed  @Constitution ~  What you say is true, Fed, but I think the more critical question is:  does this guy pose an on-going danger to the public..?  Â
Given his track record, I'd say that his mental issues have NOT responded well, either to imprisonment (understandable), OR to his stay(s) in a mental hospital. Â Â
How and where do we draw the line..? Â Whose rights take priority; those of a convicted felon / sex offender, or those of innocent people (aka: his potential victims)..?
Tough questions, but we need to start answering them with solutions OTHER than just disarming law-abiding citizens... and so far, that's all I'm hearing from the politicians..!
 @Fed up Fed  @Constitution LMAO.  He is a convicted felon.  We are not equal under the law.  Is he abiding by his "Sex Offender" requirements?  If the State of Washington feels he is safe to roam the streets then he can roam their streets.
This guy isn't homeless. Â He has a living compartment but chooses to be homeless. Â We should take those idiots carrying rifles openly on the streets and have them look out for this creep.Â
 @EdgarDerby ~  What is a "living compartment"..???
 @margay1  A cardboard box?  Bed at a shelter? Abandoned building? I don't know what he's talking about either.
 @EdgarDerby He has a what???
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@faith Are you serious or just drunk? The mayor of Portland does not make state laws. Sam Adams also does not release people from Washington State's mental hospitals or prisons! Get off your broken soap box as you are making a complete horse's ass out of yourself with what you have posted! Sam Adams isn't even the mayor anymore! Go look into a mirror with your eyes actually open and read your post. Completely idiotic!
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 @Fed up Fed I think 'faith' lives in the Portlandia world that is all make believe, but I could be wrong as usual. Jesus, where do these people come from?? What really sucks is that they make more money than we do, but of course that is dwindling as is ours. The feds are going to tax a simple flu shot .75 cents to help pay down the national debt as they spend more...Â
 @Fed up Fed  @August100  @boned Homeless veterans NEED IMMEDIATE REAL HOUSING!
 @boned  @Fed up Fed The Portland VA sends the homeless veterans to the same prison-like shelters the Oregon State Prison sends its released predatory sex offenders; what's with that?
DO NOT blame the police for this scum being free on the streets of Portland! They have nothing to do with the release of inmates from state prisons nor mental hospitals! It's our elected officials that do that and we are the ones that elected them! We need to make our elected officials know who they actually work for! This man should not be breathing our air. Rape is a crime which never stops it's attack on the victims. But our elected officials say he has a mental disorder and isn't responsible for what he does so he shouldn't be punished either. Sympathy has apparently grown into stupidity! Was he sympathetic to his victims? One of my ancient ancestors had the perfect remedy for his mental disorder. IMPALEMENT! But, how ever well deserved this might be, we are not allowed to administer the medical remedy. I am tired of our judges and doctors allowing highly dangerous and proven offenders to walk the same streets my child walks! When a maniac rapes 4 young ladies who is punished? Every law-abiding citizen. The criminals still break the laws! It's not so much the laws that need increased as it is the judges need to enact penilties that will stop future violations of the existing laws!
@MickRoh The cops are just as upset as the rest of us; they have to clean up the mess that occurs when the "system" drops the ball. It is funny how people blame the cops for eveything when their hands are tied.
It isn't only Oregon's lienient laws that attract these homeless criminals to the Portland area.Police have long known that Portland's massive public transportation system allow these types to freely move about the region.This guy could be anywhere in the Tri-County area.
@angry1 So we should shut down Tri-Met? I am a totally disabiled vet and I can walk to any part of the metro area in less that a day! Your statement has no valid arguement! Did you get a ticket for not paying for a fare on the Maxx? Why should 200,000 law abiding citizens lose a good transportation system because you think it openly helps criminals? Cars help more criminals get to and from their crimes than mass transit! I have never seen a burguler with a TV on the Maxx! Criminals need privacy to commit their crimes for the most part. People not willing to step up and do something to stop a crime in progress is more to blame than any transportation system! But cowards will always blame someone else for the problems they, themselves, are too scared to fix.
@MickRoh ..First of all,it isn't a question of whether I think MAX "openly helps criminals." Law enforcement will tell you it does.Secondly,that's why I refered to "homeless criminals," not all homeless, as having the ability to move freely about the region.This story is about a sexual psycopath who moved to Portland because,as some police say,Oregon's lenient laws.Nobody is saying anything about shutting down MAX,but it does need better security.Just a recent example was the recent bust of 4 "transients" who were stealing luggage at the airport and using MAX to get away?......Thanks for your service !
I also have never heard of a bank robber waiting for the bus to escape..... They either have a car or run! Perhaps we should get rid of jogging shoes?
 @angry1 In Portland they can get also three hot meals a day, free medical care at Central Health Concern, no laws against aggressive panhandling, heroin easily accessible at the street level and subsidized housing going up everywhere - the highlight being the luxury $55 million dollar Bud Clark Commons building in the Pearl.  Portland even built expensive stainless steel crappers on the street to give them a space to do their business and shoot up.  Wasn't that nice of the city?  Is it any wonder why there are seemingly more transients than employed people in downtown Portland?
@UtterReality @angry1  You're diliberately putting the worse face on public services that you can thiunk of! There are not more transients in Portland that workers! Would it be better to defecate in the street than have a public toilet? Use your brain before you post such idiotic statements! I am glad I don't know you! Try being homeless once! Try being a minimum wage worker in the downtown area! Try being a disabled vet. Try doing something other than shooting off an ignorant mouth!
 @MickRoh  @UtterReality  @angry1 Sorry, I didn't mean to demonize all homeless as I realize that many people can genuinely be down on their luck.  That's why I specifically referred to them as 'transients' - not homeless.  I'm talking about the junkies who travel from town to town to sponge off of their resources - a demographic that the downtown area seems to be in no short supply of.  I assume that you are not one of those people who hit me up for change to buy alcohol and drugs every day.
@Fed up Fed You're welcome!
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 @Fed up Fed My ex put me in that position living out of my F-250 under the power-lines out in Wilsonville and then my county shops because they all knew who I was. It sucked because she had my wallet and cleaned-out my accounts while I was in two different hospitals for 30 days and came out missing 10 feet of my lower intestines and wearing diapers!!!
Crap, he cruises HWY 99 in Vancouver on occasion with a different coat and a hat pulled down across his face since there are numerous daycare centers and a grade school one street to the west. Do I have the Green Light to take him out??
@boned As far as I am concerned, you have any color light you want.
 @boned Call your local police dept and pose that question to them.
 We all seem to be complaining about one issue, a person who offends others with no remorse and something that will affect a person's life for forever in a negative way, so I might be flagged but if you see this person PLEASE find or get a baseball bat and save Our Children and our courts many,many hours and years of tourture and pain, this POS does not deserve anything but a dirt nap !
If someone who commits a crime like, lets say, possession or theft, they have to check in with a probation officer every month? 3 Months? Something along those lines. But A RAPIST, only has to check in to the police once a year?Â
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It looks like its time for some law changes!
 @Manda J There are HUGE changes need for dealing with the crime of rape right down from how (or should I say IF) the cops will investigate it and arrest the rapist, to the courts prosecuting and actually giving serious-length sentences instead of a slap on the hand. If women were in charge of sentencing rapists, the rapists would be in prison for decades and decades, I am sure of it.
Grandpa Adams?......the fruit (literally) doesn't fall far from the tree....
So what is the goal here lawmakers? Make the laws for dangerous sex offenders so Liberal that all the sex offenders in the nation want to move to OR? Instead shouldn't lawmakers be trying to discourage dangerous sex offenders from coming to OR not attract them? Now apply this same idea to Sanctuary Cities....all the illegal criminals will come to the Sanctuary Cities to be protected from our laws and how exactly does this protect the legal law abiding citizens of that city? It doesn't, so then take away the rights of legal law abiding citizens to protect & defend themselves. Just exactly who are the liberal lawmakers protecting anyway? If it's not the law abiding citizens, then they should not be elected into office. Common sense needs to come back into our government NOW!!! before more innocent people loose their lives.
Stupid Liberals push for practically no laws and this is what you get.....
 @Glenn Pierce Great time to jump up on your soapbox, Glenn: when something happens that horrifies all of us and could unite a country that's more polarized than I've seen in a long time. The more we sit here on our couches crying libtard and republican't, the more time we spend not improving America.Â
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 @Fed up Fed  @Glenn well perhaps you'd like to give him a place to stay at your house? I'm sure he'd be a good babysitter.Â
Hey KATU, how about you expose the judge and parole board members responsible for this creatin being on the streets. Â We can be outraged as these kind of events continue to happen, or we can put some heat on those responsible and maybe they will give some real prison time and make them serve it all.
@Siwash It says he was just released from a mental hospital in Central Washington.
@Siwash .....ya know what? You are EXACTLY RIGHT.!!!
Laws are only important to those who obey them. However, enforcement is important. As is prosecution and the safeguarding of the public from criminals that will do what they want to do. I'm not concerned about convicted criminals. I'm concerned about the protection of the law abiding public !!
Already had one pervert for mayor, so who's to say this guy won't run for mayor?
@theobserver Unfortunately all the law requires is that he has not been convicted of a felony. This scum has so.....But our judges have shown an ability to overlook certain laws at times. Our voting population needs to learn to not vote for the moire popular candidate, but vote for the more qualified. Both judges and a board of doctors have decided to turn this scum loose. These are highly educated people. What's that tell us? My dad, who happens to be a highly decorated military officer, a staunch republican and newborn baptist, believes it's the woman's fault she got raped. He scares me!Â
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 @MickRoh  @theobserver He IS scary. And an apologist who sounds like HE could justify raping ( or having raped) a woman himself.