As I wrote before, perhaps more than once, the favorite tactic of the sheriff of Bristol County, Massachusetts, Thomas Hodgson, is to claim that all he does both wise and foolish is to protect the people of Bristol county.
But as sheriffs in Massachusetts are pretty much administrators of the county jails, their job is running their jails, not doing the job of local law enforcement who are the ones who actually keep the people safe.
And, to justify his actions and biases, he throws out fictitious claims about the amount of crime he protects us from with no facts to back those claims, and, surprise, in keeping with his hero, Trump, his biggest target is all the crimes committed by “criminal illegal aliens” who seem to be rampaging through the county’s streets while being clever enough not to be noticed by most of us while they are doing it.
As it is, although ICE may pick up the occasional someone committing a crime or having someone arrested for allegedly committing crime delivered to them, most of their big raids are done at places where people are working.
He conflates people who have been arrested and/or adjudicated because of serious crimes with people who simply could not meet bail or are awaiting their hearing on a minor crime like driving without a license or missing a probation appointment.
He does not differentiate or even mention this distinction when he speaks about who is in his jails.
He implies everyone in his jails is a criminal and a threat to the county without indicating whether any of the crimes he wants us to believe the incarcerated have committed are anything more than allegations.
And, although he paints ICE detainees as hardened criminals, as civil detainees for ICE, they are not there for any criminal purpose.
As one of the few county jails in the state having a contract with ICE to retain those without the proper papers to be in the country legally, he conveniently omits any mention of where in the states they are from. Rhode Island’s ICE detainees are also kept in the Bristol County House of Corrections. If they are released because of COVID-19 and returned to their communities, they are actually not a threat to the people of Bristol County as they are no longer in the county or even the state..
He also conveniently omits the number of those in his ICE detention whose only crime is just being here.
By order of U.S. District Court Judge William Young in response to a federal lawsuit alleging that crowded conditions in the jail could lead to massive rates of infection and death among inmates and staff and a ruling by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, the sheriff released 43 ICE detainees, 6 into house arrest, and 10 criminal and pre-trial detainees from the general population.
This was not a dripping of one or two a day as some might have thought, but a case of getting it done.
The sheriff does not like what the Judge and SJC have determined would be for the best, but he cannot really speak against them. So, his reaction was to foment fear among the general population, and, as has been his practice, leave it up to people’s imagination and biases to come up with what his half truths mean to them.
He released a public information tool he has named the “Prisoner Release Alert System” on Facebook and his website. It lists the groups of criminal charges and convictions against individual immigration detainees, but without any names attached or any indication even if these are actual crimes committed by actual people, or just a list of the scariest crimes he could compile. He justifies this because of laws governing the way criminal records are publicized in Massachusetts.
Entries include drug trafficking, operating under the influence, larceny, and at least one charge of rape with no distinction between criminal charges, which have yet to be tried in court, which means some in his jails are truly innocent while all are innocent until proven guilty, and convictions. Many have no convictions or criminal charges.
But the sheriff insists, “Some of them also had final removal orders from an immigration judge to be deported to their country of origin, but are instead free to roam the neighborhoods of our communities,” so the list of crimes was released “to help protect the people of Bristol County from potential victimization.”
But deportation is not necessarily connected to a person’s having committed any of the crimes he has on his list.
If you have the time to wade through it, this is the list of crimes that have allegedly been committed, according to the sheriff himself, by somewhere around 30 extremely busy people.
• Trafficking Of Fentanyl • Rape-Elderly; Aggravated Assault-Family Strongarm; Assault (2 counts); Domestic Violence (2 counts); Burglary; Burglary-No Forced Entry-Residence; Trespassing; Intimidation; Violation Of Conditions Of Supervision • Drug Possession; Property Damage; Disorderly Conduct (3); Conditional Release Violations (5); Aggravated Assault With Weapon; Domestic Violence (5); Aggravated Assault Family Member With A Strong Arm; Obstruct Police; Resisting Officer; Assault (2); Traffic Offense • Risk of Injury to a Child (3); 2nd Degree Assault • Resisting Officer; Assault (2) • Larceny • Heroin Distribution; Fraud; Oui; Possession Of Stolen Vehicle (2) • Aggravated Assault With Weapon; Aggravated Assault Family Strong Arm; Extortion; Threat Injury To Person; Marijuana Possession (3); Assault To Kill; Rape; Kidnapping; Arm Robbery; Statutory Rape; Operating Without A License • Fraud; False Citizenship; Fraud For False Statements; Illegal Uses Of Credit Cards (2); Embezzle Banking Type Institution • Aggravated Assault Non Family; Aggravated Assault With Weapon/ Knife; Public Order Crimes; Traffic Offense • Fraud False Statement; Fraud Impersonating; Made False Statements On A Passport Application; Stole The Identity Of Another Person While At A Refugee Camp In Africa • OUI; Assault (2); Obstructing Justice; Dangerous Drugs Possession • Child Neglect; Drug Trafficking; Synthetic Narcotic Possession • OUI-Liquor (2) • Operating With Suspended License; Leaving The Scene of an Accident; OUI • OUI-Liquor (2) • OUI-Liquor; Unauth. Use Of Vehicle • Drug Trafficking; Aggravated Assault; Trespassing; Intimidation; Resisting Officer; Larceny • B&E Dwelling When Resident Home; Manufacture/Possess/Deliver Schedule I and II Drugs • Traffic Offense; Disorderly Conduct; Forgery; OUI Liquor (3) • Operating After Revoke License; Carrying Dangerous Weapon; Operating After; Leaving Scene of Accident (2): Property Damage; OUI-Liquor; Operating After Suspend License; Possession Of Firearm W/O Permit (4); Larceny Of A Motor Vehicle; Assault To Kill; A&B Dangerous Weapon • Distribution of Cocaine; Probation Violation; Larceny • Drug Trafficking • Drug Possession; Drug Trafficking • OUI-Liquor (2); Hit And Run; Traffic Offense (2) • OUI-Liquor; Traffic Offense • Traffic Offense (2); Failure To Appear; Rape; Visa Fraud • Kidnap Adult; Risk Of Injury To Child; Unlawful Restraint; Disorderly Conduct • Making False Report; OUI-Liquor • Entice A Child Under 16; Assault And Battery; Carrying A Dangerous Weapon; A&B Dangerous Weapon (2); Oper. After License Suspended Resisting Arrest; OUI; • Domestic Violence; Assault; Child Neglect • OUI-Liquor; Operating Recklessly • Aggravated Assault –Family (2) • Larceny (6) • Larceny (4); Probation Violation (2); Resisting Officer • OUI; Violation Of Probation • OUI.
Or, it is just a big scary list for the purpose of just being scary so he can exaggerate his actual role in keeping us safe.
He is usually protecting us from that thing under the bed and the monster in the closet that for some reason we just have never seen but are expected to accept are there because he said so.