Cop Who Sought Photos of Teen’s Erection in Sexting Case Commits Suicide Moments Before Arrest

December 2015:

The cop was the sexual predator, not the teen.

Police Detective David Edward Abbott, a member of the Northern Virginia-Washington D.C. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, committed suicide Tuesday before law enforcement could arrest him on suspicion of sexually abusing minors.

Abbott, you will recall, was the detective in the noteworthy teen sexting case from July 2014, in which the authorities sought a warrant to take the 17-year-old male suspect to the hospital, inject him with a drug that would give him an erection, photograph his genitals, and compare the photo with existing pictures of his genitals the police had confiscated from his 15-year-old girlfriend’s phone.

The teen was eventually sentenced to one year of probation. Here’s the kicker: Abbott sued the teen’s lawyer for defamation. The lawyer, Jessica Foster, remarked to the media that the warrant to take pornographic pictures of her client—to be used as evidence that he was guilty of creating child pornography—was “crazy.”

Sex Offender Laws Require Rethink

January 2014:

Sex Offender laws are gratuitously cruel and assume that all ex-offenders are dangerous psychopaths. However the vast majority can be rehabilitated and lead normal productive lives. Most sex offenders deserve compassion. Current laws make it harder for registered sex offenders to reform. by Ryan Hope (Pen name of a Colorado Therapist)(henrymakow.com)

I have chosen to take on this unpopular issue because I have something that needs to be said.

Contrary to popular belief that once a sex offender, he will always be a sex offender, recidivism rates are quite low for offenders that get counseling. At about 6%, they are much lower than many other types of criminal recidivism. That means 94% don't re-offend. This is compared to only 30% in the case of other offenses.

Yes, a minority of sex offenders are sociopaths or psychopaths. They are violent re-offender types, serial rapists and those that get sadistic pleasure torturing or killing. These people should never be trusted to reenter into society.

But the majority of sex offenders can be reformed, but the law won't let them or anybody else forget. Some of my colleagues work with ex-offenders and they report a high degree of depression, homelessness and suicide.

When they return home from prison, they may not be allowed to move into their own homes because it is too close to a school or park. However, 98% of molestations happen with somebody they know and not because of the proximity of schools or parks.

Supportive relatives prefer not to allow ex-offenders to live in their homes because their address is posted on sites like Megan's Law. Families can be ripped apart; the very people the ex-offender needs for healing are placed out of reach.

The Prisoner Suicide Puzzle

8-15-2013 Washington DC:

Three inmates in Washington, D.C.'s city jail have killed themselves in the last two months. Add in a fourth, who took his own life in November, and that's a staggering figure for a lock-up system that hadn't previously seen a suicide in three years.

A pair of reportedly self-inflicted deaths in June was enough to spark a comprehensive plan to address the situation, including immediate efforts to make it physically more difficult for the more than 1,700 inmates regularly housed in the city's central detention facility to hurt themselves behind bars.

"One suicide is one suicide too many," says Dr. Forrest Daniels, health services administrator for the D.C. Department of Corrections.

The corrections department announced that jail guards would double security check efforts, making rounds every 15 minutes, up from the previous 30-minute check system. Director Tom Faust also said that his staff would undertake a comprehensive review of the jail's suicide prevention protocols.

The moves did not stop another inmate, 56-year-old alleged sex offender Mike Johnson, from hanging himself in his cell last week. Jail officials said they would immediately require all prisoners to share cells, in the wake of the latest incident, and would no longer issue razor blades to new inmates until they have completed a mental health evaluation. Paul Mannina, a Labor Department lawyer who killed himself just five days after being locked up for allegedly attacking a female co-worker in her home in Northwest D.C., reportedly cut his throat with a jail-issued razor. The three other inmates believed to have committed suicide since November died by hanging.