Sorry, BB. I promise not to overreact again!
Another Fugitive Found Hiding in Thailand
From a California Newspaper. Pete
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How Karr got a credential
CAREER AS TEACHER IN STATE WAS BRIEF
By Luis Zaragoza, Dana Hull and Rodney Foo
Mercury News
When John Mark Karr went to work as a substitute teacher in Sonoma County five years ago, he passed a routine background check that included fingerprinting and records checks with state and federal law enforcement agencies.
``Nothing came up'' when the state Department of Justice and the FBI went looking to see if Karr -- who emerged this week as a suspect in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey -- had any previous arrests and criminal convictions, said Lee Pope, staff counsel for the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
A few months later, he was arrested on five misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography and held in jail for five months, and later left the country.
It took two years before his credential was revoked, but he did not try to teach again in California. Had he tried, he would have had to overcome a system of background checks designed to immediately red-flag his pornography arrest, said state law enforcement and education officials.
So while the system would benefit from funding for greater electronic storage capacity, Pope said, what's in place is working for the state and its more than 300,000 public school teachers.
Teachers are not the only education workers to undergo background checks.
In San Jose Unified and across the state, every job hopeful, as well as long-term volunteer, is fingerprinted during the hiring process. That includes teachers, clerical staff, volunteer coaches on football teams -- anyone who comes into regular contact with students.
``It's very aggressive,'' said James Lovelace, the district's manager of human resources, about school employee background checks. ``We need to protect children. You can't get an offer letter from San Jose Unified until you have a fingerprint clearance.''
Terry Nolan, Cupertino Union School District's director of human resources, said California expanded background checks to include all school employees after the slaying of 18-year-old Michelle Montoya in May 1997. Montoya was raped and killed by a substitute janitor in the wood shop of Rio Linda High School near Sacramento. That led to the Michelle Montoya School Safety Act, which requires fingerprint clearances for individuals who have contact with schoolchildren on K-12 campuses.
The current background checks reveal all convictions regardless of the level of offense and all arrests pending adjudication, said Aaron Carruthers of the state Department of Justice. In addition, the applicant's fingerprints are stored and checked regularly so school officials can be apprised of any employee arrests or convictions.
The department shares background information with the school district considering the job applicant as well as the state teacher credentialing commission, Carruthers said.
According to a Denver Post report published Thursday, an unnamed official with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations said Karr had a record of sex offenses in the South. But a database search of court records by the Mercury News did not show any convictions.
Karr's California teaching career was brief.
After obtaining his credential in December 2000, Karr worked in four school districts throughout Sonoma County between January and March 2001, according to the Associated Press. That would have followed California's Class Size Reduction experiment, in which schools across the state were sent scrambling to hire additional teachers and the qualifications of the workforce declined because many teachers were hired based on emergency credentials.
Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School outside Petaluma, twice hired Karr as a second- and fourth-grade substitute in early 2001, according to the Associated Press. After observing him, Raines said, he concluded Karr had trouble keeping classes focused and did not know what he was doing.
``He just seemed like somebody who thought he wanted to be a teacher,'' Raines said. ``After a few days, I could see it just wasn't for him.''
There's no indication Karr sought employment in Sonoma County after his arrest. News reports indicate he left the country in late 2001.
The state suspended Karr's credential in April 2002 and revoked it in May 2003 after an investigation, Pope said.
Karr's whereabouts after he left California in late 2001, after his release from jail, and until his arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, this week are sketchy. A resume widely cited in recent news reports for ``John Karr'' posted on Job4Teacher.com, a job site for applicants in Asia, lists previous jobs as a teacher in Honduras during 2004-05, and a private teacher in Germany during 2002-03.
________________________________
How Karr got a credential
CAREER AS TEACHER IN STATE WAS BRIEF
By Luis Zaragoza, Dana Hull and Rodney Foo
Mercury News
When John Mark Karr went to work as a substitute teacher in Sonoma County five years ago, he passed a routine background check that included fingerprinting and records checks with state and federal law enforcement agencies.
``Nothing came up'' when the state Department of Justice and the FBI went looking to see if Karr -- who emerged this week as a suspect in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey -- had any previous arrests and criminal convictions, said Lee Pope, staff counsel for the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
A few months later, he was arrested on five misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography and held in jail for five months, and later left the country.
It took two years before his credential was revoked, but he did not try to teach again in California. Had he tried, he would have had to overcome a system of background checks designed to immediately red-flag his pornography arrest, said state law enforcement and education officials.
So while the system would benefit from funding for greater electronic storage capacity, Pope said, what's in place is working for the state and its more than 300,000 public school teachers.
Teachers are not the only education workers to undergo background checks.
In San Jose Unified and across the state, every job hopeful, as well as long-term volunteer, is fingerprinted during the hiring process. That includes teachers, clerical staff, volunteer coaches on football teams -- anyone who comes into regular contact with students.
``It's very aggressive,'' said James Lovelace, the district's manager of human resources, about school employee background checks. ``We need to protect children. You can't get an offer letter from San Jose Unified until you have a fingerprint clearance.''
Terry Nolan, Cupertino Union School District's director of human resources, said California expanded background checks to include all school employees after the slaying of 18-year-old Michelle Montoya in May 1997. Montoya was raped and killed by a substitute janitor in the wood shop of Rio Linda High School near Sacramento. That led to the Michelle Montoya School Safety Act, which requires fingerprint clearances for individuals who have contact with schoolchildren on K-12 campuses.
The current background checks reveal all convictions regardless of the level of offense and all arrests pending adjudication, said Aaron Carruthers of the state Department of Justice. In addition, the applicant's fingerprints are stored and checked regularly so school officials can be apprised of any employee arrests or convictions.
The department shares background information with the school district considering the job applicant as well as the state teacher credentialing commission, Carruthers said.
According to a Denver Post report published Thursday, an unnamed official with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations said Karr had a record of sex offenses in the South. But a database search of court records by the Mercury News did not show any convictions.
Karr's California teaching career was brief.
After obtaining his credential in December 2000, Karr worked in four school districts throughout Sonoma County between January and March 2001, according to the Associated Press. That would have followed California's Class Size Reduction experiment, in which schools across the state were sent scrambling to hire additional teachers and the qualifications of the workforce declined because many teachers were hired based on emergency credentials.
Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School outside Petaluma, twice hired Karr as a second- and fourth-grade substitute in early 2001, according to the Associated Press. After observing him, Raines said, he concluded Karr had trouble keeping classes focused and did not know what he was doing.
``He just seemed like somebody who thought he wanted to be a teacher,'' Raines said. ``After a few days, I could see it just wasn't for him.''
There's no indication Karr sought employment in Sonoma County after his arrest. News reports indicate he left the country in late 2001.
The state suspended Karr's credential in April 2002 and revoked it in May 2003 after an investigation, Pope said.
Karr's whereabouts after he left California in late 2001, after his release from jail, and until his arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, this week are sketchy. A resume widely cited in recent news reports for ``John Karr'' posted on Job4Teacher.com, a job site for applicants in Asia, lists previous jobs as a teacher in Honduras during 2004-05, and a private teacher in Germany during 2002-03.
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HansMartin
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Fortunately I was in a very remote portion of Northern CA (Igo, Ono, Beegum, Olinda, et al) and missed most of the media frenzy. Listening to the radio on the drive back & reading the SF Chronicle when I got home, this guy emerges as one weird dude.
He was raised in the South in a religous family, When he was 19 he married a 12 year old neighbor (hey this is Georgia & Louisiana!!). He then married his current ex-wife when she was 15/16. She is the one giving him the alibi--he was home at Christmas.
There is a ton of physical evidence -- DNA, writing samples, palm prints, shoe prints. He either is guilty or craves media atention -- we shall see what we shall see.
He was raised in the South in a religous family, When he was 19 he married a 12 year old neighbor (hey this is Georgia & Louisiana!!). He then married his current ex-wife when she was 15/16. She is the one giving him the alibi--he was home at Christmas.
There is a ton of physical evidence -- DNA, writing samples, palm prints, shoe prints. He either is guilty or craves media atention -- we shall see what we shall see.
I haven't read what, if any, crime he committed here. However, your thinking is exactly the same as many others at this moment. I guess we'll know once he's back in the States and the investigation concludes. Peteplayboy wrote:Hi all;
Can the guy tried to get away from Thai's authorities for a real crime he did in Thailand? By fake a confession for the crime he did not do in US!!!! so he can be send back to US instead of be jailed in Thailand?
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HansMartin
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He was originally arrested for being in the possession of child pornography.prcscct wrote:
I haven't read what, if any, crime he committed here. However, your thinking is exactly the same as many others at this moment. I guess we'll know once he's back in the States and the investigation concludes. Pete
It's a small world after all...
paedophiles
Unfortunately there are millions of paedophiles across the globe. However very few are psycopathic, muderers or sociopaths.
When we talk about the guy who murdered JonBenet, we are talking about a sadistic psychopathic murderer. Many of these people choose children only partially from a sexual standpoint - most times it is simply because children represent an easier target.
By saying that these people are "simply" paedophiles lessens the observance of paedophiles in our community as we then think paedophiles must be as outrageous and abhorrent as the psycopathic murderers.
Infact paedophiles are much more isiduous and subtly threatening than the deranged individual who did what he did to JonBenet.
Another American was extradited on July 29th. He was wanted in Florida for molesting an 11year old boy 5 years ago. He managed to come to Thailand and work at the Montessori Intenational school in Pattaya for 3 years before being caught recently in Phuket with a young boy.
When we talk about the guy who murdered JonBenet, we are talking about a sadistic psychopathic murderer. Many of these people choose children only partially from a sexual standpoint - most times it is simply because children represent an easier target.
By saying that these people are "simply" paedophiles lessens the observance of paedophiles in our community as we then think paedophiles must be as outrageous and abhorrent as the psycopathic murderers.
Infact paedophiles are much more isiduous and subtly threatening than the deranged individual who did what he did to JonBenet.
Another American was extradited on July 29th. He was wanted in Florida for molesting an 11year old boy 5 years ago. He managed to come to Thailand and work at the Montessori Intenational school in Pattaya for 3 years before being caught recently in Phuket with a young boy.
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HansMartin
- Professional
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:50 am
- Location: Back Home in CA
According to CNN:
"Suspect John Mark Karr will not face charges in the murder case of JonBenet Ramsey, two sources have told KUSA, a Denver, Colorado, television station. KUSA, which is a CNN affiliate, also reported the decision against charging the former school teacher came after sources said a sample of Karr's DNA did not match the evidence found at the murder scene in 1996."
No big surprise. Hell of a way to get a free business class ticket out of the LOS
"Suspect John Mark Karr will not face charges in the murder case of JonBenet Ramsey, two sources have told KUSA, a Denver, Colorado, television station. KUSA, which is a CNN affiliate, also reported the decision against charging the former school teacher came after sources said a sample of Karr's DNA did not match the evidence found at the murder scene in 1996."
No big surprise. Hell of a way to get a free business class ticket out of the LOS
another fugitive in thailand
the last i hard on fox was he wont go to jail only probation
mind bogglin
mind bogglin
A Greatfull Guest of Thailand