This past week, Q-line asked: Do you think that SMPD went too far or did they do the right thing in issuing the warning to the public regarding known pedophile Jack McClellan?
Here are your responses: “SANTA MONICA POLICE SHOULD CONTINUE what they’re doing with the posting of the bulletin of the child molester. It’s a great service for the city of Santa Monica.”
“THE SANTA MONICA POLICE DEPARTMENT absolutely did the right thing about alerting the public about this brazen creep’s presence among us. However he’s not the only one, by far. Parents and caretakers must be ever vigilant in this dangerous society of today. These creeps are lurking everywhere, and we must gently but firmly warn our children about the presence of bad people among us. Let’s not have any more tragedies with children.”
“YES, I THINK IT’S VERY NECESSARY that these pedophiles are alerted to the public. It was really sad when that poor young boy in San Fernando was sodomized by some creep, so I think the Santa Monica Police Department did a justifiable thing.”
“THAT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Society has to be protected from threats, whether its diseases, disasters, or perverts like this guy. Authorities have to publicize it so people know to protect themselves from these guys. He says he hasn’t done anything illegal but its only a matter of time before he does, because perverts like that cannot control their urges. He should be put away for life because he doesn’t belong in society and he does not deserve to be cared for.”
“THE FIRST GUT REACTION TO THE POLICE alerting us about a potential pedophile is that this is great. However, does this now give our police the right to slander everybody? Sally with a cigarette in the park? Al the jaywalker? Bob with a joint? Tom played his music too loud? Bill has parking tickets? There needs to be some standard criteria for the police to blacklist people. Otherwise, we might find everyone being publicly humiliated by the police.”
“OF COURSE SANTA MONICA POLICE Department did the right thing to put his picture on the bulletin. Maybe they will save one or two children he would’ve molested. Maybe his constitutional rights was violated, but so what? I really think they did the right thing.”
“MY THOUGHTS: ABSOLUTELY NOT. I may not always agree with SMPD, but I am an adult who is childless. I was actually in the children’s section of the public library, the main branch, looking for a Harry Potter for a friend of mine, a young girl. The library was filled with unattended children... parents dumped their children there as a baby-sitting technique. The police are correct to post a warning in that library. If parents watched their kids and supervised them more, we wouldn’t have potential pedophiles running through the public library. I fully agree with SMPD and its warning, not to scare parents but to get them to do their job better and watch their children. Don’t treat the library or any public park as a daycare center.”
“NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, THE SMPD absolutely did the right thing. Parents in the community have been in a frenzy about this man, and deserved to obtain some accurate information. I have a young daughter. While I abhor Jack McClellan’s conduct, I want to point out the obvious: He was not born a pedophile. He’s a child of god and needs help. How is it that he gets government disability checks to sustain an abhorrent lifestyle. That money would be better used for intensive mental health counseling.”
“BY THE MOST PART, LAW ENFORCEMENT agencies are galvanized into action constitutionally after a crime has been committed. Then, arrests are made. This enables law enforcement agencies the ability to offer evidence to the judges prosecutors and juries of the judicial court system. Jack McClellan and any other photographer taking pictures in public at random is not breaking the law. The United States Constitution does not give any American the right to privacy, only freedom and liberty. I personally believe that the SMPD was pressured into filing a worthless restraining order on Jack McClellan, a person who extended a great deal of energy bringing attention to himself and his kinky persona into the limelight for his 15 minutes of fame. In my opinion, the protesting of the pedophile in the United States or internationally is a tremendous hypocrisy. Television commercials use children wearing skimpy costumes. A well known commercial sunscreen advertisement displays a young female child displaying part of her bare, sunburned bottom. Young girls are displayed in beauty contests baring partially nude bodies wearing show-girl costumes. B-rated movies use underage children in the cast. With total disregard of the immoral aspects of their perverted actions, wealthy American businessmen flying internationally to Asian countries for child prostitution is prevalent. I trust that those reading my comments understand that I personally believe children should be protected from perverts who take advantage of their innocence and in doing so eliminate any chance that the child may remain physically or morally pristine. There should also be severe laws that inhibit mothers and fathers from tempting their children to known celebrity perverts and anyone else who has the ticket price.”
“THE SMPD DEFINITELY DID THE RIGHT thing in issuing this warning to the public about this predator, It says in there: While he admits to being attracted to children, he has yet to act on it.”
“THE SANTA MONICA POLICE DEPARTMENT should be consistent in what they do. We have a number of homeless people in our town, many of them probably are pedophiles, but we never get notified about them. But when somebody else comes to town that is, we are. They should practice evenness.”
“THERE’S NO QUESTION WHAT THE right thing is. The issue is a pedophile’s rights versus a child’s rights. A child needs an informed adult to clue them in.”
“YES, THE SMPD ABSOLUTELY DID THE right thing by warning the public about the pedophile who was taking photos of children. This man may not have acted out his own desires, but he certainly is encouraging other people to do so, and those people are also a threat to our children. We’re lucky to have a police department that will take this kind of action on our behalf.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 11, 2007. Read the original PDF.