A lot of states, together with Washington, have handed three-strike legal guidelines for the aim of sending violent repeat offenders to jail for all times as a substitute of permitting them the chance to stroll free and proceed their violent methods. If Washington’s three-strike legislation was enforced, 61-year-old Mount Vernon, Washington police officer Mike “Mick” McClaughry wouldn’t be preventing for his life in a hospital after being shot behind the pinnacle by a repeat felon.
McClaughry was responding to a name of a capturing in a residence, when 44-year-old Ernesto Lee Rivas managed to shoot the officer behind the pinnacle. Rivas then took refuge in the home and held police in a standoff that finally ended within the seize and arrest of Rivas.
McClaughry was first taken to native Skagit Valley Hospital after which transferred for want of higher care to the Harborview Medical Heart in Seattle. Mount Vernon is positioned about 60 north of Seattle.
McClaughry has 31-years of legislation enforcement expertise with the Mount Vernon Police Division on the time he was shot. When the information of the capturing hit the information, your entire space of Mount Vernon was mainly locked down. The native school, Skagit Valley Faculty tweeted to everybody to get inside and keep inside till additional discover.
At Rivas’ arraignment, the choose set bail at $1 million. It was reported that there have been two teenage accomplices whose bail was set at $500,000 every.
Rivas has an extended rap sheet and by all purpose of sanity, ought to have been safely locked up for all times years in the past, had it not been for a liberal plea discount to which the police weren’t proud of.
Rivas had numerous run-ins with the legislation within the 1990s. In 1997, he was charged with ‘4 counts of first-degree kidnapping, 4 counts of second-degree assault, 4 counts of intimidating a witness and one rely of first-degree theft.’ Since Rivas already had two prior felony convictions for second-degree assault, being discovered responsible of simply one in every of any of the kidnapping or assault costs would have despatched him to jail for all times beneath the state’s three-strike legislation.
Inside days of his trial, Rivas accepted a plea deal wherein Rivas would plead responsible to a few lesser costs and prosecutors would drop the entire critical kidnapping and assault cost. The lesser costs have been for illegal imprisonment and theft. Police in Yakima, Washington have been angered over the plea deal as they needed Rivas despatched to jail for all times due to his violent file. They needed him off the streets for good.
In taking the plea deal, Rivas rubbed it within the faces of these concerned, saying:
“I take this plea discount to keep away from a 3rd strike. Oh, by the way in which, does that imply I acquired 4 balls and a stroll?”
Rivas was given jail time however was out strolling the streets by 2011, when he was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm.
On the time of the capturing this week of Officer McClaughry, Rivas had eight felony convictions on his file. With a file like his, Rivas ought to by no means have been let out, however because of the liberals who initiated the plea deal, Rivas was not solely free, however tried to homicide a veteran police officer who was most likely trying ahead to his retirement years.
In my e book, those that allowed Rivas to keep away from the three-strike legislation are as responsible as Rivas or not less than are accomplices to his crimes since they knew of his previous. I ponder what the individual or individuals accountable for the Rivas plea deal would say to the household of Officer McClaughry? Had it not been for his or her liberalness, Rivas could be sitting in jail for the remainder of his life and Officer McClaughry could be mendacity residence in his mattress at night time resting as a substitute of in a hospital mattress preventing for all times.
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