Tuesday, September 06, 2016

AN HONEST CRIMINAL

By Bob Walsh

Victor Rodriguez, 20, was a guest of the people of the city and county of San Francisco until last Wednesday. He was doing a brief stretch for robbery and battery, and was undergoing charges for threatening a deputy while in the jail. One of the charges against him was dropped, but a second one was not dropped. However, a clerical error in the court indicated that ALL charges against Rodriguez had been dropped and he was kicked out.

Rodriguez asserts that he told the jailers that there had been a mistake and he was not supposed to be released. The jail is not disputing his allegation, but they kicked him out anyway.

The following day the error was noticed and a warrant for Rodriguez was issued.

Rodriguez became aware of it and called a local TV station, explained the situation to them (I guess he wanted to cover his butt, and were I in his position, I would probably have done something similar) and told them he intended to turn himself in. He in fact did so on Saturday, walking into the jail at 0900.

It is unclear at this time if he will be charged with escape, but I sort of doubt it. I suspect the court and the sheriff will be just as happy if this whole thing goes away.

As a side note, I was in charge of the prison’s Reception Center at DVI for some little period of time. On three occasions we got prisoners in who asserted that they should not have been there. Two were intakes from local jails. One was a parole roll-up. All three were telling the truth. The two intakes were “wrong guy” situations, the prisoner we got had in fact not been convicted of anything. The parole roll-up had in fact closed out his parole two weeks earlier.

Excrement occurs and prisoners do not always lie.

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