Perv Free!
Sung to the tune of “Born Free.” Lyrics below. It’s the judicial anthem of Massachusetts, where a familiar face is back in the news, having been free to follow his heart thanks to judges who could not bear to confine him. Boston Herald:
The serial sex fiend charged with mercilessly beating a woman during an attempted rape has been left free for years by judges who refused prosecutors’ pleas to lock him up as a sexually dangerous person.
David C. Flavell was first arrested for public lewdness in 1996, and has been racking up charges since. Yesterday, cops in two states said they are not surprised Flavell has escalated to a charge of violently assaulting and attempting to rape a woman who, beaten and blood-soaked, clawed her way out of a Massachusetts General Hospital bathroom Thursday. The cops who arrested him before can’t believe he was still on the street.
“We all thought he was done after the last one,” in 2008, said Salem, N.H., police Capt. Shawn Patten, whose officers locked up Flavell four times from 1996 to 2003. “We thought he was going to jail and would be there for a long time, given the charges against him. We were shocked to say the least to learn he was let out.”
Flavell, 40, who is homeless, was ordered held without bail after he pleaded not guilty to assault with intent to rape and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon yesterday in Boston Municipal Court.
He is accused of following the 27-year-old woman into an MGH restroom, grabbing her throat, slamming her to the ground, banging her head into the floor and repeatedly punching her in the face. He tore her jeans trying to rip them off, police said.
At the time of Thursday’s attack, Flavell was free on pretrial probation pending trial on a 2007 charge of making harassing phone calls in Boston. He has been arrested for sex crimes 14 times in eight communities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, most recently in January 2008 in Braintree for a scenario that mirrors Thursday’s attack, records show. There, Flavell was convicted of accosting a woman in a Borders bathroom, authorities said. Braintree police deputy superintendent Russell Jenkins said in that case, Flavell’s would-be victim screamed so loudly that he was forced to flee.
“He didn’t get to finish what he intended to do, which is to rape the woman,” Jenkins said. “He was outside that ladies room pretending to be on a pay phone for an hour while he waited. Then he follows the woman in.”
The article goes on to explain that twice in the last four years, prosecutors have attempted to have Flavell civilly committed. In both cases, the judges turned them down, determing he was “not a sexually dangerous person,” but rather an “exhibitionist.”
“While frightening, the 2008 incident in the Borders bookstore bathroom did not involve any attempt to touch the woman,” (the judge) wrote in a decision signed 43 days before Thursday’s attack. “Indeed, none of the defense experts regarded this most recent incident as a ‘ratcheting up’ of Flavell’s behavior but simply a change in his modus operandi, which is generally to shock and surprise but not to hurt or to make any physical contact.”
As a resident of Massachusetts, I find the local judiciary’s high degree of concern for the rights of individuals heartening.* But as a father and husband whose wife and daughters frequent the abovementioned Borders and Massachusetts General Hospital, my feelings are conflicted. Especially because I have the feeling that, though this repeat level-three sex offender is presumably now out of circulation for good … I know, like Salem Police Capt. Patten and Norfolk DA Keating, that is a foolish thing to presume … there are undoubtedly other predators out there who could be off the streets but aren’t, in addition to the predators that haven’t even come to the attention of authorities yet.
OK, here’s the judicial anthem of Massachusetts. Sing along:
Perv free! As free as the door revolves!
As free as the judge allows!
Perv free to follow his heartPerv free! And victims surround him
They would be astounded
To know that he’s on the street!Perv free! Where no walls confine him
He’s freed by a caring judge
So there’s no need to hide!Perv free! With urges for perving
No time wasted serving
Cause … the … perv’s … free!
* Given recent legislative efforts to allow men the legal right to use women’s restrooms, provided the men in question are able to affirm their belief that they are in fact women, it is also heartening to know that there is a high degree of judicial tolerance for ”shock and surprise,” as I suspect there may be a lot of it coming to a women’s room near you.
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Topics: Boston, justice, pervs
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:10 am on Saturday, October 24, 2009
One Response to “Perv Free!”
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October 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
[...] Twisted Justice October 27, 2009 Posted by taoist in Democrats. Tags: Assault, Crime, Lunacy, Massachusetts trackback This is what progressive values do to the justice system. [...]