Trust me, after reading about all the BS going on in our state yesterday it would be easy to miss this;
Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office has issued a news release concerning the arrest of 35-year-old Josheua King for a warrant issued by Sand Bernadino County, California:
On 02/17/2021, the Sioux Falls Area Fugitive Task Force arrested Josheua Alan King, 35 years old, on an arrest warrant issued by San Bernardino County, California in 2018 for the following offenses:
4 counts of Lewd and Lascivious Acts with a Minor
1 count of Lewd and Lascivious Acts with a Child of 14 or 15yrs of ageJosheua King was arrested at the Midco Aquatic Center in Sioux Falls where he was a part time employee. Prior to his arrest, Mr. King was also employed at Sanford Hospital in Sioux Falls.
Ok, a couple of things to unpack here. Does the city do a criminal background check before hiring people to work around our youth? Heck, even a simple criminal background check would have told us he had a warrant out for his arrest, for around 2 years. If you search the city salaries, Mr. King is listed in the 2021 wages report as making $14 an hour as Midco Maintenance, in the 2020 wages report he is NOT listed, so that tells us he was hired last year something long AFTER the warrant was issued.
Thank goodness the SFPD apparently got a tip hopefully before he committed any crimes at the MIDCO.
I can’t speak for the hospital he was employed at, they are a private entity, but I am concerned they didn’t check his background either.
What is also disheartening wasn’t like he had a previous record that he was already convicted on and time served, he had an ACTIVE WARRANT!
I will be honest with you that I have never had a lot of confidence in our HR department, they have 4 people in the office that make over six-figures yet they don’t do simple background checks!? There needs to be a full outside investigation on how something like this happens. The council, while normally doesn’t get involved in the Mayor’s business, when the mayor and his administration does NOT do their jobs they need to intervene. If I was them I would pass a resolution to audit the HR department.
If I were a parent of young children that took my kids to the MIDCO I would be outraged. We need to get to the bottom of this before something like this happens again.
Folks, these are the things that happen when we don’t have open and transparent government! Apparently it is so bad they are even hiding things internally. WOW!
It’s hard to find employees. Especially in Sioux Falls. Nonetheless, there should have been a background check for any position in government. To blame here is HR at the city. Walk in there. Try to find somebody. There’s no service or support. There’s incompetence if/when you get their attention. Personally, I was assaulted by a city employee at city hall. They wouldn’t take a complaint.
There is no law that says ‘we’ cant hire them. The background checks are done in order to review their past, not necessary to to block from hiring them.
Many people have felonies as such, but does that mean they cannot be hired? No.
If hes a good worker, can show he will faithfully do his job, respect the employees, clients, patrons, he can be given a chance.
You also have to take into account, that the City may place him in a position whereas he will be monitored, supervised, and watched. So this most likely restricts him to being a lower level employee, and not in places of enstrusted power.
You also have federal and state laws that protect even criminals from being discriminated against.
For all you support a ‘reform’ in our imprisonment procedures, to working with previous convicts, to help them change their lives, you cannot have it both ways. you cant not want reform, then say, ‘we’ want to block them from employment opportunities. Double Standard there.
Businesses hire people all the time, people convicted of sexual acts, abuse, neglect, theft, drugs all the time. So why do we wish to resort to attacking the CITY here whom is acting as an “employer” as well?
Question: Did this persons background and the past record prevent him from ever gaining employment? No. It simply shows that “WE” need to be careful of enstrustin him in places of trust;
The City is not doing nothing wrong here by hiring him, and who are ‘we’ to decide what questions the city asked and discussed prior to hiring him.
– Mike Zitterich
While you make good points Mike, you obviously didn’t read the article. He had an active warrant for his arrest, that is much, much, different than hiring someone with a past conviction that has done their time. HE WAS A WANTED MAN!
I am not an HR expert, but I have been involved in the interview, due diligence and hiring process for many individuals.
An open warrant for arrest will not typically appear on a background check because warrants are issued when authorities have evidence that a suspect has committed a crime. That pesky part of the 6th Amendment that established that whole “innocent until proven guilty” deal.
So, l3wis, while you do make some good points, in this case, you obviously don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.
But don’t get down on yourself; everyone is ignorant about something.
While you make wonderful points, you also forget the city has this thing called the police department that has access to a national warrant data base. They could easily type in someone’s name and see if it pops up. You are correct that a background check wouldn’t show this, but a simple search over at the PD would. What amazes me most is that we now have 2 clowns commenting about defending the rights of suspected child molesters working for our city. Wow.
There are regulations and rules when police can conduct a warrant check on someone. One of them is not for an HR department to verify in regard to employment.
So Scott I know that as much as you want to blame this on HR of Sioux Falls you are falling short.
Again active warrants do not show up on most background checks that I am aware of.
The local police department would be breaking the law to run a person’s name for a warrant check based solely on a request from an HR department.
Now granted, I wonder what shows up in the Google machine when you type his name in. But short of checking sites like our own gotwarrants.com for Minnehaha County, it is way more difficult than you suspect to find out accurately if there is an outstanding warrant for someone. It is way easier to find out if someone has been convicted of a crime.
Thank you Mike, because that is my other question, does he have a past record? Because that would have put up a red flag. While I am not into the guessing game, I would find it hard to believe that a 35 year old wanted for such a crime didn’t suddenly decide to commit the crime. I could be wrong, but I think they probably could have found something on a simple background check. I was told that the Minnehaha county does do these checks before hiring someone.
We also live in a right to work state that has lax laws on worker rights, and I would bet doing a simple background check on someone in the hiring process is illegal if they make you aware. I had one done on me before my last two jobs, and they asked me in advance if I was ok with it and gave them permission. That’s the clincher here, if that permission is given in advance, I don’t see how this is against the law.
“Does all of this mean that our current AG could be hired by the city of Sioux Falls?”….
Wait….Scott is wrong AGAIN?! Say it ain’t so!!!!