Saturday, April 19, 2008

CAST Open House

ER Working for justice
CAST, the Child Abuse Services Team, of Eureka held its open house Friday afternoon to allow community members and city officials to tour the facility and meet with the various employees that form the organization that is CAST.

Several county and state agencies participate in the investigations that the members of CAST facilitate including employees from the County of Humboldt Department of Health and Human Services, the Rape Crisis and Sexual Assault Response Teams, and the District Attorney’s office.


TS Team's mission: Ease young victims' trauma
Since its inception locally in 1996, CAST has interviewed 1,967 children -- an average of 16 a month. A total of 487 convictions for physical or sexual abuse of children have resulted.

25 comments:

  1. Holy Cow! Gallegos really is going bald. someone should tell him about Rogaine or the Hair company.

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  2. I am curious about the numbers quoted in the article. How many of the 487 convictions occurred after PVG took office? How many since Ms. Jackson was dismissed? How many since Mr. Isaac fled? How many convictions have been obtained by DDA's hired by PVG? How many of the 1,967 interviews took place after PVG took office?

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  3. Very good question, red.

    And what about the Public Records Act Request?

    1. The monthly CAST statistics kept by the DA's office for January 1, 2006 through April 30, 2007 including but not limited to:

    a. the CAST Interview Summary (a breakdown of interviews by gender, age, ethnicity, interview type, and referring agency.)

    b. the CAST DA Summary containing the breakdown of interviews conducted, cases referred to the DA, cases filed by the DA, cases rejected by the DA, the dispositions of cases and whether they were felony or misdemeanors, whether there was a plea or jury trial, the breakdown in sentencing and whether probation or prison was imposed and the breakdown in length of time of sentences.

    c. The CAST Law Enforcement summaries for January 1, 2006 through April 30, 2007, including but not limited to the numbers of interviews brought by each agency and cases submitted by each agency.

    2. Case numbers of all child abuse/CAST cases filed by the DA's office between January 1, 2006 and April 30, 2007

    3. CAST interview sheets containing the names of all law enforcement and CAST personnel who attended each CAST interview between January 1, 2006 and April 30, 2007 with the understanding that no identifying information of any victim or the victim's family is being requested.

    4. Sign in or attendance sheets for all CAST meetings held between January 1, 2006 and April 30, 2007

    5. Copies of all minutes and agendas from all CAST advisory monthly meetings from January 2006 to present.

    6. Copies of all minutes and agendas from all CAST executive board meetings from January 2006 to present.

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  4. Really - I guess it's time for an up to date request.

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  5. They must have cleared out the cobwebs for that little shindig.

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  6. These are the last numbers I have:

    In 1997
    There were 137 CAST Child Interviews
    There were 56 cases of alleged child abuse RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 37 child abuse cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 1998
    There were 142 CAST Interviews
    There were 52 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 37 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 1999
    There were 194 CAST Interviews
    There were 81 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 49 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 2000
    There were 194 CAST Interviews
    There were 66 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 48 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 2001
    There were 196 CAST Interviews
    There were 65 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 46 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 2002
    There were 215 CAST Interviews
    There were 66 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 47 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In January of 2003, Paul Gallegos took office

    In 2003
    There were 205 CAST Interviews
    There were 67 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 40 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In June of 2004 Paul Gallegos fired his top child abuse prosecutor.

    In 2004
    There were 146 CAST Interviews
    There were 50 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 23 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In 2005
    There were 155 CAST Interviews
    There were 35 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office
    There were 17 cases FILED by the DAs office

    In the first four months of 2006
    There were 40 CAST Interviews (on track for 120 interviews)
    There were 4 cases RECEIVED by the DAs office (on track for 12 cases received)
    There was 1 case FILED by the DAs office.

    ONE.

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  7. the figures do kind of speak for themselves.

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  8. Makes me want to see the stat's for 07 !

    What about how many cases where filed when yougofree.com was the assigned Deputy DA ?

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  9. Statistics are only a small part of what you would need to know. Without knowing the specifics of each case it would be impossible to know whether they were handled appropriately unless you are only looking for something to complain about. Good luck with that!

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  10. I guess all the perverts and molesters were affraid of PVG and quit offending in 2007 ?!

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  11. If PVG's handlers thought for one millisecond that the 2007-2008 figures (they are up to the month, or used to be, when Chris Andrews maintained them) the figures would be released to the T/S, the ER, and posted on the DA website.

    Keep after that request.

    PVG showing up at a CAST function is like Himmler going to a Bar Mitzvah. Hilarious.

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  12. It is a waste of time, guys. No one cares. No one.

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  13. I, for one, don't believe there are an unlimited number of child molesters in Humboldt County. While there are obviously still lots out there, we can hope that the numbers will decline and the statistics should show that.
    All interviews don't lead to charges being filed, obviously, so without knowing the specifics you can't judge the effectiveness of the DA from statistics alone.

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  14. There are people who know, and who can explain. Some have spoken up. Glenn Franco Simmons tried to get answers and was stymied by the DA. The rest of the reporters stayed back. If it was because they believed his questioning about the statistics was political in nature, that is sad. The statistics do speak volumes. There's no campaign in play now. Not everything Gallegos does is political. My having this blog does not make criticism and questioning of Gallegos political.

    It is very very serious stuff. And there are very very serious consequences on the individual level. For the kids who are ill served by the DA's office. Because of a lack of training and experience, the putting of children on the stand without the background to actually get them through it so that they can find themselves again.

    It's a tragedy with long term repercussions.

    I am becoming convinced that there is nothing to be done, and nothing will be done.

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  15. Maybe we need Perverted Justice to come to town and do a sting. Fill up those court dockets pronto!

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  16. I know wht you mean. The county is just becoming more corrupted each year.

    I still it's the influence of the marijuana growers/ money/industry. The BIG money corrupts most local politiicans to some degree (some much worse than others).

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  17. Big money from any source can be a corrupting influence. That is why it is so important to have real campaign finance reform. If BIG money was excluded from campaigns, our individual contributions could have a noncorrupting influence. Wouldn't that be great?

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  18. Then we could tackle the equally corrupting influence of promised jobs after they leave office for their helpful votes while in.

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  19. Then we could try to clean the glass of the revolving door between the Pentagon and military industries.

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  20. I don't do windows.

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  21. Perverted Justice has been in town. They caught an 8th grade teacher for soliciting a decoy 13 year old on the internet a few years ago.

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  22. They catch people all the time without doing an organized sting. I remember that case. They weren't actually IN town though. I meant do an in-county sting with cops to meet the all perverts when they show up. The usually catch a bunch that way and it is very efficient use of our police as well as trains them in the tactics needed to catch these scum.

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  23. They also caught an old guy (a masseuse) in Eureka for soliciting little girls a couple of years ago.

    (I have a close friend who works for PJ so I keep up.)

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  24. There was a crew over at CAST sweeping away the cobwebs for the open house.

    The reason why they used the stats from 1996 on is that they can't use their stats...they stink.

    Go hire someone to force them to give you the stats Rose and you will pass out...they are aPAULling.

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