Judges ordered Joshua Vick last year to stay away from his ex-girlfriend and his parents, all of whom he is suspected of shooting to death last week, says the Los Angeles Times. The alleged killing spree came a month after he was released from Los Angeles County Jail, because of overcrowding, after spending just three days there on a 60-day sentence. “It is like the perfect storm, with a lot of elements here producing a tragedy,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who ordered an investigation into how the courts, probation authorities and Sheriff’s Department employees had failed to identify Vick as a potential danger.
Baca said the case was emblematic of the daily struggle of the justice system to identify and help violent offenders before they turn deadly. About 500 inmates are released from the jail system every day. After his arrest last March on suspicion of assault, Vick should have been sent to a special program for domestic violence offenders within the jail, Baca said. But neither prosecutors, the judiciary nor the probation department acted. “The public deserves better than this,” he said. “This is a systemic failure … we have a supermarket of justice, processing cases and not looking at the stories behind each individual.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax19jan19,1,705823.story?coll=la-headlines-california