Andrea McCarren
@AndreaMcCarren
WASHINGTON,
D.C. (WUSA9) -- Just one day after the apparent suicide of a DC cop who was
charged with child pornography, some new questions are emerging about the
electronic monitoring system that was supposed to ensure he never left his
home.
The body of 32
year-old Marc Washington was pulled from the water near Hains Point in Southwest
last night.
If he was
indeed wearing a monitoring device, why did no one realize the officer had left
his home in Waldorf, Maryland and headed to the District to commit suicide?
You may be
surprised to learn that it is very rare for a defendant to be monitored around
the clock. On any given day in DC, there are 375 defendants awaiting trial and
equipped with GPS monitoring devices. Most are only being closely tracked
during business hours.
Washington was
equipped with that GPS monitoring device and under home confinement as of
yesterday morning. Less than 12 hours later, his lifeless body was plucked from
the frigid waters of the Potomac River.
Several sources
tell us it is extremely rare to monitor a defendant 24/7 unless that person is
a flight risk or a public safety threat. In most cases, PSOs, or pretrial
service officers, won't even learn a defendant violated their home confinement
until the next business day, when an alert is sent via email.
The head of
DC's pretrial services agency, Cliff Keenan, said: "While the supervision
technology is good, it's not foolproof and it's not going to make some people
do the right thing all the time."
Ironically,
court documents reveal that in Officer Washington's case, "The government
asked the Court to detain the defendant without bail pending trial." It
was a request that was denied.
The Washington
case remains under investigation, but based on standard procedures, it is
unlikely his child pornography charge would have made him a candidate for
round-the-clock surveillance.
One other note:
PSOs are not routinely issued smart phones, so even if they were willing to
work off the clock, they would not necessarily have access to those emailed
alerts.
Again, DC is
attempting to keep track of 375 defendants who have electronic monitoring
devices, but there are as many as 45-hundred others also under pre-trial
supervision, but not equipped with GPS.
Written by Andrea
McCarren, WUSA9
