It is the sort of heart rending story we hear, time and time again.  A much beloved 17-year-old girl from the Poway area of San Diego County in California, was out jogging.  It was something she loved to do.  And she loved her school (she was a straight-A student) and she loved playing the French horn in the San Diego Youth Symphony.

   She loved many things and, most of all, she loved life.  But when she went out to jog that day, she never came back.  She never came home again.  And then, after a few days, her remains were found.  It was yet another horrible story.  It was a story like so many others before.

   It wasn’t long before John Albert Gardner III was arrested.  And, no surprise, he turns out to be a registered sex offender who a psychiatrist had said was unrepentant, dangerous, and definitely should not be released.

   However, as often is the case, as soon as his surprisingly short sentence was completed, he was turned loose on society once again.  And authorities now suspect, more than one young girl may have paid a terrible price for our cavalier treatment of this dangerous predator.

   Why does this sort of thing happen, again and again?  Why are we continually plagued with serial killers, violent sex offenders, random shooters, and so many, many others who would do such terrible harm to so many innocent and unsuspecting souls throughout our land?  How is this possible?

   It is possible because we have made it possible. Without realizing it, we have facilitated such events by not taking on the responsibility of seeing to it that there will be far less chance of something like this ever happening again.

   So what could we have done and what can we do now?  We should have done what we had better start doing right now.  We can start by facing the statistical fact that a significant percentage of serious sexual predators will re-offend.  And we can start by recognizing that most extremely dangerous individuals have a highly visible trail of behavioral footprints that could have been recognized early on.

   So what do we do about it?  We see to it that new laws are proposed and passed which recognize that a large percentage of serious sexual offenders cannot be rehabilitated and, therefore, should never be released — not until we are assured they can be restored to some sort of safe normality.

   We also must have workable, practical legal procedures in place that will identify relevant behavioral footprints before those most severe events can occur, and then initiate definite and effective intervention.  And we must make sure that such procedures and such interventions are never going to be allowed to become tools of any sort of government controlled political action.  This is very important.  There must be very effective safeguards in place.

   We must consider the lessons of history. San Diego suffered a massacre at a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant many years ago and a report similar to this one was ignored.  More recently we had several shootings around the country and a small plane flown into a building in Texas.  In all of these cases, there were clear signs of serious consequences to come — just waiting to happen.

   Now what are we going to do about it? Will we continue to lament and wring our hands and then return to our normal patterns?  Or will we decide that we have had enough?  What will it be?

   It’s up to all of us.  It’s up to you.

San Diego