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| Probation arms more of its officers to cope with realignment |
| By sbsun.com - Christina Villacorte |
| Published: 05/03/2013 |
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Deputy Probation Officer 2 Angel Gonzalez put his hand on his gun as the rest of his team prepared to knock on the door of an East Los Angeles gang member recently released from state prison. The gang member's rap sheet includes two assaults with a firearm, rape, sexual battery, terrorist threats and an arrest - though no conviction - for murder. He is on probation, not parole, because of the state's public safety realignment, also known as AB 109. "They don't scare me," Gonzalez - a military reservist who recently returned from Afghanistan - said of the increasingly dangerous men and women that his team monitors. Of course, he's armed. Most of his colleagues in the Probation Department who have to do similar checks on felons are not. And that's what worries county probation officials, now that the department has increased responsibility for monitoring dangerous ex-cons. Since Gov. Jerry Brown began enforcing a U.S. Supreme Court mandate to ease unconstitutional overcrowding at state prisons in October, the county Probation Department has found itself watching over more violent criminals than ever before - 499 "very high risk" and 7,197 "high risk" AB 109 offenders as of March 29, according to Supervisor Michael Antonovich. Read More. |
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