My mother had a VERY BAD day today

My mother has not had an easy life and I often feel sorry for her. Between her and my father they had 9 other brothers and sisters. Out of all of those brothers and sisters and their spouses my mother is the LAST one alive.

My father died a few years ago.

All my mother has in her direct family is myself, my brother David, my wife, and my kids...

She called me in tears today because one of her friends called her and told her that David was listed in the paper under the weekly Crime Stoppers section.

My brother is addicted to illegal drugs. He is currently in prison for the second time. David SHOULD be in prison because he commits criminal acts in order to obtain money to pay for illegal drugs... David is exactly where he needs to be. David has been in jail for about six months. He is serving time in Indiana... He is obviously listed in the Indiana Offender Database and was arrested in Allen County about six months ago. He was also sentenced in Allen County.

Apparently the Allen County Prosecutors Office has decided to bring additional charges against David. It took about six months for these charges to "filter through" the system. Allen County has recently issued an arrest warrant for David.

He was listed in both local newspapers this weekend and people have been asked to contact Crime Stoppers or The Allen County Sheriff with information regarding his location...

I have done so... I have contacted the Allen County Sheriff and Crime Stoppers and left messages with both. I will tell them where David is, AGAIN... He is in an Indiana Jail that he was sent to BY ALLEN COUNTY... Good Grief...

For those of you have read this blog for awhile please remember that this happened ONCE BEFORE...

A couple of years ago David was serving his first prison sentence. That time he was also convicted of offenses in Allen County and he was sent to the Indiana Prison system where he served time. He was convicted of crimes in Allen County both times...

During that 1st sentence Allen County issued another arrest warrant for David. The Federal Government was running a National campaign to help local law enforcement serve arrest warrants. That weekend my mother was watching my daughter for the weekend. Two Federal agents and two local law enforcement agents went to my mother's house looking for David (Note he was in an Indiana prison at the time serving a sentence he received in Allen County). They asked my mother's neighbors if they had seen David. Her neighbors suggested they contact me.

So they got into their vans and came over to my house. The wife and I were having breakfast. Two Federal agents and one local law enforcement agent rang my doorbell (The other officer was around back of my house). My wife answered the door and they showed her an old picture of David and asked her if she had seen him... She did not immediately recognize the picture and one of the officers kind of nastily said that "You should recognize him her is your brother-in-law." My wife called me to the front door.

I told the officers that Dave was in jail. He had been arrested in this County and sentenced in this county. I gave them his Indiana document number and the name of the Indiana prison he was in. I asked them if they had looked for David online? One of the law enforcement officers laughed and told my wife and I "that it was not like CSI..."

A couple hours later one of the Federal agents called me back. He said that "He could NOT locate David in the Indiana prison system even with his Indiana ID number that I had provided." He asked if I could provide his specific mailing address... I of course provided it...

They spent at least half a day looking for someone they already had... Wow...

Note that I was able to go online and find David in the Indiana Offender Database with no problem that same day...

I have a ton of respect for our police officers. I truly want to help them do a good job. It is obvious to me that they do not have the tools to do their job properly!

It is obvious to me that our "system" is broken when things like this happen with my brother TWICE in a row...

It is 2007. I would think that we would have an online database of the people who are serving time in our prison system and that law enforcement could easily search this database?

I am curious, what do you think of this situation?

Mike Sylvester