Seen the name of our fair city in the headlines or heard it on the news lately? I'm sure you have. With all that has been said and written about the unexpected resolution of an 18 year kidnapping, one more word of explanation needs to be shared.
Other than the overt sneakiness of the kidnapper, there is one other primary reason why he was able to elude law enforcement over the last 18 years: jurisdiction. The area of Antioch where his sprawling compound was put together is actually not in Antioch. It's in a fairly small unincorporated section that is really Contra Costa County, not city of Antioch. Thus, the law enforcement agency charged with this area is the County Sheriff's Department, not the Antioch PD. Contra Costa County contains more square miles than any other county in California, so the Sheriff's Department is spread rather thin even if fully staffed. Sometimes these small unincorporated areas within the limits of a city just don't get the attention more active areas do.
Could they have discovered this earlier? Did they have at least a couple of opportunities? Certainly... but when you combine the isolation of that unincorporated area with the extreme efforts by the kidnapper to conceal what was going on, you can at least see how it was missed.
The Antioch PD is now involved in the investigation (along with the Sheriff, FBI and Pittsburg PD) because the case is potentially spilling out well beyond that small unincorporated area.
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3 comments:
Rick,
Regarding your statement: "Contra Costa County contains more square miles than any other county in California..." What are you referring to? It's not the largest, by far; nor is it the most populous (persons per capita or per area), from what I have seen. I'm sure you had something else in mind, and just wanted to know.
I was reading an article about the budget and staffing issues the CoCoCounty Sheriff's office is having. Not fun, for sure.
OK, one sure way to get a comment on one's blog is to post something outrageous, like...hmmm... let's say, "Contra Costa County contains more square miles than any other county in California..."
My buddie Tim is absolutely right. Our fair county is no where near the largest CA county in land area (just look at a map) nor population.
When we moved here several years ago I was reading some history which referred to the fact that the county used to be even bigger than it is now, including what is now most of Alameda County... hence the name "Contra Costa" or "opposite coast" of the Bay from SF.
Anyway, my aging mind twisted that info in some strange way and I posted what I did.
Sorry for the fiction, and thanks to Tim for the kind correction. :-)
In light of the budget/staffing issues, maybe it's one of the largest areas per person-hour the Sheriff's department has to cover!
I didn't know that AlCo used to be part of CoCo... Next you'll be telling me that the U.S. used to be part of Great Britain or something silly like that!
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