Dori: Prolific offender arrested 105 times in 14 years keeps being released

A few nights ago, a guy named Randolph Humiston grabbed and dragged a 9-year-old girl on a playground. Thankfully, a good Samaritan, Ernesto Martinez, intervened to save the girl, and Humiston was arrested. But then KIRO 7 TV’s Gary Horcher dug deeper, and found out that including this latest arrest, Humiston has been arrested 104 times in 14 years, all in King County.

I want you to marinate on that. He has been arrested 105 times in the last 14 years, nine in the past year. Horcher said that works out to once every six weeks.

That means that when Humiston gets out, there is no question about whether he is going to re-offend. The question is simply whom he will victimize next. If he has been arrested 105 times, that probably means he has committed thousands of crimes without being caught.

But despite those arrests, this guy was running around able to attempt kidnap. Thank goodness for Ernesto Martinez, who is a true hero.

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According to what Horcher found, Humiston, who has listed his address as homeless every time, has been convicted of “threats to kill, assault, resisting arrest, stalking, escape, indecent exposure … and dozens of car prowls and drug charges.” In most cases, he was let go within a couple of days. Horcher told me in an interview that on more than one occasion, Humiston was arrested for trespass and prowling almost immediately after being released from jail.

While Humiston is not a registered sex offender, Horcher worries that the child luring attempt could be part of a larger trend.

“These things usually fit patterns, they’re just not one-off occurrences,” Horcher said of crimes against children. “That’s why, the first time I saw this, I thought, ‘How many times had he done this and not been caught?’ I say thank goodness for guys like Ernesto Martinez.”

So we keep putting Humiston back on the street to see what crime he will commit next. Will he rape or murder someone? We know he’ll do car prowls. He has four felonies, but they are not “strike” felonies — if you have three felonies deemed serious enough to be a strike, you can be put away for life.

Luckily, Horcher said that this time Humiston will be behind bars for a while, as his bail is set at $150,000. But it still illustrates the greater problem of prolific offenders around here.

What should we do about this? We should have a points system for lower-level crimes. One point for the lowest level, with more points for more serious crimes. Under my points system, no one would get arrested 105 times because they would be locked up for life long before that 105th arrest. If someone is a compulsive career criminal, we lock them up. We separate them from society. We protect the 9-year-old girls from being abducted.

Maybe we have to get a little more proactive around here. Maybe our prosecutor needs to stop playing ‘catch-and-release’ with these prolific offenders. Because 105 arrests and still not locked up — that shows just how broken our justice system is.

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