Had state parole agents leafed through Phillip Garrido’s federal parole file when they took over his supervision in 1999, they would have known his property near Antioch, Calif., didn’t end at the backyard fence.They might have found Jaycee Dugard and her two girls back behind that fence, perhaps in the soundproofed shed that federal agents knew about, the one Garrido called his recording studio.
But state agents never saw the file. They never even asked for it.
Had Garrido’s most recent parole agent asked questions about a 12-year-old girl he came across last year during a visit to Garrido’s house, he too might have unlocked a sordid, nearly two-decade-long mystery.
Bureaucracy, sweet bureaucracy.
And some say only government is qualified to make all the medical decisions of 300,000,000 Americans.
Comment by geoffb on 11/5 @ 4:51 am #
Isolated incidents, nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Comment by Salt Lick on 11/5 @ 5:24 am #
Bureaucracy, sweet bureaucracy.
I’m pretty sure Garrido distracted them with donuts.
Comment by ruddiger on 11/5 @ 5:49 am #
Google Maps works too.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/5 @ 6:35 am #
Sounds like some folks were merely collectin’ paychecks instead of, you know, being into doing their jobs…
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 6:52 am #
Bob, I fear that is endemic.
People are OWED their paychecks. They NEED them.
Duh. [grumble grumble about personal situations I can't bring up here]
Comment by Roland THTG on 11/5 @ 7:23 am #
“We’re from the gubmint, we’re here to make sure our pensions are bloated.”
-with apologies to RWR.
Comment by B Moe on 11/5 @ 7:29 am #
Kind of makes you wonder what the whole point of parole is, huh?
Comment by JeffS on 11/5 @ 7:34 am #
Bob, I fear that is endemic.
Alas, Carin, your fear is all too real. Many gubbermint employees are little more than welfare recipients bloating the taxpayer funded payrolls.
Comment by TheGeezer on 11/5 @ 7:34 am #
If a society can protect citizens against violent persons without using execution, natural law requires using the alternative to death. If society cannot guarantee the safety of its citizens with prison or other constraints of violent persons, it is obligated to execute those threats, and remove the threat of the innocent.
This guy in Cleveland killed, what – nine women? Nine who might be alive if he weren’t?
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/5 @ 8:01 am #
Carin, you’re right.
Too many people take jobs for the lucre, instead of doing what they really love. Although I think the “cultural revolution” of the 60’s is partially to blame, I also blame the “equality of outcome” types; there’s no reason someone sweeping the floors at the auto manufacturing plant has to make similar wages to folks that actually assemble the cars. In the same vein, on federally funded road contracts, there’s no reason that the folks waving the flags and holding the caution signs should be making upwards of 15 dollars/hour…
I’m all for the dignity of skilled labor and all, but some of the rates demanded by unions or set by the government are astonishing…
The last few years of my career, among the civilian federal employees I worked with, there were secretaries making more than some of the engineers! Now I undestand the inherent value of good clerks and admin staff, but that seems beyond the pale to me…
I know that I’m going to upset some folks, but I personally don’t believe that Federal and state employees should be allowed to organize; outside of those who’s specialty is in one of the skilled trades. The days are gone when government employees make less than their private sector counterparts; today they make about 1/3 more in total compensation and it takes an act of congress to fire them…
/soapbox
Comment by Pablo on 11/5 @ 8:16 am #
Eleven, as it stands. They’re still looking. They were discussing the case on CNN yesterday and Roland Martin seems to have figured out what the problem is. You see, the murdered women were black.
Would this have happened with white women? Wouldn’t people have noticed white women missing? Wouldn’t the police have investigated more aggressively if these were missing white women? Would they have prevented these deaths if the women were white? Of course they would have, says Roland. So the reason these women are dead is racism.
Comment by Joe on 11/5 @ 8:17 am #
As California and Michigan go, so goes the nation…
We are so fucked.
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 8:20 am #
Well, not everyone is lucky enough to do “what they love.” Some jobs simply aren’t love-able. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t “love” doing a job well. Or “love” that they work hard and earn what they make.
Short story. A family member is married to someone was has (basically) been a dependent of the state for almost 14 years. Her medical bills have run into the millionS. He lost his job, so my husband hired him. Since he’s worked for us (a few months- as a salesman) he has sold … two very small account. I mean, meaningless. He called the other day to say that he doesn’t have money to make sales calls. He gets $400 car allowance a month on top of salary. But, since his wife is in a nursing home right now, they don’t get the $700 for housing.
This is our problem why?
I can directly the affect of assistance, and it ain’t pretty. People become more devoted to their state aid than they do to anything else.
One reason he won’t move and find a new job? Because all the aid shit they have set up at their present local. That our company has basically no use for him (since he’s not doing anything for us) at his current location is irrelevant. They have more loyalty to their government aid than their job.
But, where’s the check? Did you guys mail it yet? Can you float some extra cash?
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 8:22 am #
Pablo – didn’t their black family members notice they were missing? Man, racism really is deep rooted when even black folk don’t even notice their missing relatives.
So sad.
Comment by Pablo on 11/5 @ 8:30 am #
Carin, are you suggesting that black people played some sort of role in this, other than being victims?
Denounced.
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 8:45 am #
Crap. I guess there’s just no denying my racism.
Comment by dr kill on 11/5 @ 8:49 am #
Nothing current government does has anything to do with law or order. It is all about providing an income for reliably Democrat voters. Find me one free thinker interested in toiling at the government plantation. It is slavery in the 21st century.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/5 @ 8:49 am #
“Well, not everyone is lucky enough to do “what they love.” Some jobs simply aren’t love-able. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t “love” doing a job well. Or “love” that they work hard and earn what they make. ”
You have a point Carin. Maybe I should have said “enjoy what you’ve chosen”, or, “be grateful for what you have”; we are on the same wavelength though, that one should take pride in doing a job well and give an honest day’s work for the agreed upon wages. For many, it’s all about “getting over”, doing the least thay can. It seems like some folks are actually proud of “slacking”. I’m sorry but that’s not the way I was raised and it seems to me that it is part of a larger problem in our society…
And that’s pretty tough about your relative, the medical problems and all; but you’re right that it’s really not your problem if they’ve decided that they’re tied to a particular locale due to government support. I hope that they start being more productive as I’m sure that it’s hard to find the resources for charity, especially since y’all are raising children…
Here’s hoping that it’ll get better soon!
All the best
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 8:57 am #
It’s not that “it’s not our problem.” Family issues are always “our problem.” The issue, to me, is that my bil doesn’t seem to understand that he isn’t just owed money (from the company) because he needs it. I have suspicions that he’s not really working all that much. Like, barely at all. But he justifies it with an argument that he “needs” the money.
Does it matter that times for small businesses are REALLY tough? Not to him. The mentality that “they” (be it the government, a company, or even a family member) can afford it so it’s ok is simply the constant mindset. The default position. Folks are too far removed l from the burden of profit/loss understanding and what it takes for a company to survive to take such things into consideration.
What he SHOULD be thinking is that he needs to work his ass off so the company survives and he continues to get paid. Instead, he seems to be working off of some sort of … well, they can pay me, because I need it philosophy. It would never occur (to him, or folks like him) that their lack of productivity has any effect on things.
But it does.
Comment by agile_dog on 11/5 @ 9:00 am #
most recent parole agent asked questions about a 12-year-old girl he came across last year during a visit
That right there is indictative of the “not my job/just following orders/what? Me?” mindset that seems so prevelant in public service jobs. What part of “public service” don’t they understand?
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/5 @ 9:07 am #
People who’ve never been in a small business don’t realize the struggle to make payroll regularly. When I was in college I worked as a lock, safe, and door mechanic for a small business in my area. The boss had 6 of us total, and you would hear him on the phone drumming up business and collecting overgue bills for work already done; it was an eye opening experience, to realize that if I didn’t “make my paycheck”, then they might not be able to pay me…
Too many people don’t realize this, or like you said Carin, feel like it’s owed to them by others who “have it”. It’s really hard to believe that we have the most profuctive workers on earth when it seems like so many have this entitlement mindset.
Comment by Carin on 11/5 @ 9:10 am #
I suppose it would be good for us to get my bil in to the office where he can make collection calls for us one day. Then he can spend a day answering the phone from our suppliers.
Then, he can spend a third day reviewing our “expenses.”
It would be an eye-opening experience.
Comment by Parole Agent on 11/5 @ 9:14 am #
Hey, the rules say I have to visit six properties a day. Got it? Visit. Not “search the premises.” Not “dig around the back yard.” Visit.
I’ll have you know, on the day in question, I visited nine properies. (Okay, fine, it’s because I was covering for my buddy who went fishing, and he covered for me the following week, but still — NINE!)
I don’t need this shit from you guys. I got a merit bonus after my annual review. That’s how hard I work!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta talk to the hiring manager over in FedMed. My brother-in-law says he needs a good government gig, no matter how hard they make us work.
Comment by Matt on 11/5 @ 9:26 am #
So when they finally catch the Cleveland guy, he’ll be arrested for murder and racism?
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/5 @ 9:43 am #
It’s really hard to believe that we have the most profuctive workers on earth when it seems like so many have this entitlement mindset.
So many people believe that money just snows down from the sky, and the evil rich just have bigger umbrellas to catch it in.
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 11/5 @ 9:54 am #
Homo Lupus Homo, I think the saying goes.
Comment by B Moe on 11/5 @ 10:18 am #
Here is the crux of it. It doesn’t matter a whit if you love your job or not, if you agree to do it for compensation then you do your best. I don’t much like the job I have now or any I have had in the past, I am of the opinion that if work was fun nobody would have to pay you to do it. I love what the money I earn allows me to do on my time off, I think money can buy you happiness, it does me.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 11/5 @ 10:33 am #
What do we care? Our government “servants” could give a flying squirrel about what is happening, as long as they get their paycheck and are padding their pensions. And I can’t believe that we have a president with the biggest hubris quotient in the history of mankind. Forget his Marxist policies. He makes my skin crawl just to look at him.
MY G*D! What if health care passes?
We are well and truly screwed if it does…
Tough shit, my beloved son. You already owe about $40,000 to the government. Why not add another $80,000 to your debt – for these assholes that “represent” us?
Comment by B Moe on 11/5 @ 10:40 am #
More government fail.
Make sure you read it all the way to this part:
Comment by agile_dog on 11/5 @ 11:23 am #
Maybe everybody in goverment (at least the law and budget makers) should be involved in running a small business for a short time (one fiscal quarter, maybe)? I’ve been in the workforce for 30 years, but it wasn’t until my friends and I started a dog training business 4 years ago that I got a real education about “doing business”. And I’m not talking about making General Ledger journal entries, but what the real costs of hiring and paying an employee are. Or the fees. Or the red tape. Or keeping the cash flowing – you really do have to drum up new business all the time.
If goverments (local, state and federal) were truely run like an actual business, we’d get better service from them. Of course, goverments have the “luxury” of being able to legally mandate new income (taxes) – private business generally doesn’t. Hey, here’s an idea – any elected offical whose goverment runs a deficit two years in a row is automatically barred from running for re-election in the next cycle.
Comment by Kresh on 11/5 @ 12:21 pm #
Parole Agent: “Say, is that your twelve-year-old girl?”
Garrido: “Er, yes?”
Parole Agent: “Great! See you next week!”
Garrido: “Um, bye?”
Soon-To-Be-Dead-Twelve-Year-Old-Girl: “Well, shit.”
Comment by Old Texas Turkey on 11/5 @ 2:11 pm #
Alas, Carin, your fear is all too real. Many gubbermint employees are little more than welfare recipients bloating the taxpayer funded payrolls.
I would argue that the same applies to many corporate employees as well. The only difference being that many corporations actually have to cover their costs on their own efforts than extort it from the public at large.
Its directly connected to a point that Ric Locke has made several times.
Government is no different than a large bloated corporation from the perspective of efficiencies and housing deadbeats. I suppose it can be viewed as a social service that both provide by keeping these folks off the street and off the dole (although in the case government, I suppose employment there is simply indirect dole without the label of “unemployed”).
I have worked at too many large corporations and have seen too many quota hires, idiot nephews/son-in-laws, those employed because of regulatory fiat, all people that had no function in the company than to collect a paycheck and benefits … all the way from clerks to senior executive VPs and C-level officers. Pure unadulterated overhead.
Comment by B Moe on 11/5 @ 4:46 pm #
But in a free, or at least lightly regulated market, bloated corporations won’t last because of competition, government doesn’t have that impetus to trim down. And when government regulations stymie or eliminate competition, neither does private business.
Comment by Squid on 11/5 @ 4:59 pm #
Plus, the idiot nephew is likely to run afoul of Uncle Owner sooner or later, which will take care of the problem. The idiot government employee will never run afoul of the union; it has infinite patience for incompetence. Hell, it’ll probably make him a steward!
Comment by Alan Kellogg on 11/6 @ 4:10 am #
It’s not just the government workers. People have this attitude that you stay out of other people’s business and leave them alone. Major Hasan in the most recent case gave signs he was going off the deep end, and people let it slide. So he becomes the third troubled man doing, or planning to do, bad things nobody wants to intervene with.
Even more recently a local 12 year old boy was attacked by a pair of rottweillers. I suspect they at first just wanted to play, but the child mistook their intentions and things escalated from there. The gist of the tale is, a woman intervened on the boy’s behalf and fended off the dogs until one of the owner’s kids could come get the animals.
All the while other people were coming out of their houses, looking, then going back inside. No of them went to the victims’ aid.
We’re taught to ignore other people, taught to ignore their problems, taught to avoid having anything to do with them. We have become prisoners in our own homes in our own neighborhoods, kept separated from our neighbors—from our potential friends—all in the interest of safety and avoiding problems of various sorts.
Comment by Pontius' Pilot on 11/6 @ 9:48 am #
Well, technically, FUBAR is the “third level of military emergency”, so it doesn’t really fit. More of a standard bureaucratic fuck up.