KCPD’s Career Criminal Squad and HIDTA (High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Section recently played big roles in the U.S. Marshals Service’s Operation LASER, which enforced sex offender registration in eastern Jackson County. LASER stands for Local Agencies Supervise and Enforce Registrations, and we did just that on March 4 and are continuing to follow up on these cases.
With everyone from the FBI to the Lake Tapawingo Police Departments, officers from nine agencies worked out of the Lee’s Summit Police Department’s headquarters March 4 to check on 160 registered sex offenders in nine eastern Jackson County cities. Police found that 50 of them were out of compliance with state and federal sex offender registration laws or were violating their probation (such as having a computer when they were ordered not to). Nineteen were arrested that day, and officers are out looking for another 31. Two had child pornography on their computers, and an additional two computers are being examined.
Investigators with the U.S. Marshals are assigned to KCPD’s Career Criminal Squad and led this initiative. The Marshals are tasked with enforcing the Adam Walsh Act, a federal law passed in 2006 that requires sex offenders from one state who move to another to register as a sex offender in their new state of residence. Police found two possible violations of this law during their sweep.
Behind the scenes, KCPD’s HIDTA Section’s investigators and analysts prepared information on all 160 of the offenders, including their pictures, last known addresses, criminal histories and any other possible investigations they might be involved in.
All of this is part of an ongoing effort by the U.S. Marshals, KCPD and other area law enforcement agencies to ensure convicted sex offenders are in compliance with the law and don’t present a danger to society. Click to see the Missouri Sex Offender Registry.
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