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Help For Warrant
Backlog
Police Use List Of Welfare Recipients To Find
Felons
June 2, 2003
Associated Press
NEW LONDON
-- Arrest warrants pile up by the
hundreds in police departments across Connecticut and many go
unserved, but a new tool from the federal government is
helping state and local police get a quicker fix on
felons.
"We found that the system was total bedlam and
chaos," said state Rep. Robert Farr, who served on a
legislative task force that studied the system in
1997.
This year, police across the state began using a
new tracking device from the Social Security Administration
and have gotten results. Since February, state and local
agencies have been able to compare their lists of wanted
felons to a database of federal welfare
recipients.
Fugitives are more likely to give Social
Security an accurate address so they can receive their
benefits check, said Monica Thompkins, the national
coordinator for the fugitive felon program.
When it
gets a match between the databases, Social Security informs
local law enforcement and sends the felon a letter warning
that their benefits will be cut off in 60 days if they ignore
their legal problems.
In four months, the program has
identified 440 felons in Connecticut, Thompkins
said.
Each department in the state is responsible for
serving and following up on their own warrants. Farr estimates
that there are 58,000 active warrants in the state, The Day
reported in its Sunday editions.
Many arrest warrants
are served when the suspect is pulled over for an unrelated
violation and his or her name is fed into a federal and
statewide database. Critics contend, however, that the chance
encounters are not adequate.
"The attitude in law
enforcement historically has been that serving a warrant is
not a priority because eventually criminals get rearrested,"
said Farr, R-West Haven.
Those serving the warrants say
tracking suspects takes time and is a lower priority than
domestic disputes and 911 calls.
"We need to spend more
time to serve the warrants than we have, tracking down the
people that are wanted," New London Sgt. Michael Strecker told
the newspaper. "More time means more money. That's probably
why we are in the state we're in."
In November, the New
London department began giving Strecker two days a month to
focus solely on serving warrants to reduce the backlog.
"What we have is a zealot," Capt. Kenneth Edwards said
of Strecker. In the first three months of this year, Strecker
served 64 warrants.
James F. Papillo, the state's
victim advocate, calls the backlog of warrants a public safety
problem.
"A lot of times they will say they couldn't
find them, but they didn't make any effort to find them," he
said.
New London State's Attorney Kevin Kane concedes
that some suspects are tough to find, but notes that if the
case involves a violent offender, the process is expedited.
Yet, there are those who fall through the cracks to commit
more assaults and even homicide.
One of the most high
profile cases was the 2001 shooting death of a pregnant woman
in Plainfield. Jenny McMechen was eight months pregnant when
she allegedly was shot to by her ex-boyfriend, Michael Latour.
The Plainfield man, who had a history of violence and an
outstanding warrant, faces a murder charge.
McMechen's
death prompted tougher state laws against people who kill
pregnant women, but no significant changes to the warrant
system.
For a new warrant, police build a case against
a suspect and send their findings to a state prosecutor. If
the prosecutor believes that the warrant presents probable
cause for an arrest, it is passed on to a judge. If the judge
agrees with the findings, he or she will sign it and send it
back to police to be served. Judges also issue re-arrest
warrants when a suspect misses a court date.
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