His JW status is mentioned in this recent article:
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/187790_rapist25.html
Attack suspect is convicted rapist
Sex offender was freed after request to send him to McNeil Island was denied
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
By HECTOR CASTRO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A convicted rapist who last year narrowly avoided being locked away indefinitely as a sexually violent predator heads back to court today, suspected of attacking two women and forcing one to strip.
Curtis Shane Thompson, 45, a level three sex offender, put up a violent struggle with police outside a University District apartment building Monday where the assaults took place, at one point trying to snatch an officer's gun from the holster, police said.
"Who knows what would have happened had he been able to gain control of that officer's gun," police spokesman Scott Moss said yesterday. "It could have been a lot worse."
Thompson was treated at Harborview Medical Center for injuries resulting from the fight, then booked into the King County Jail for investigation of robbery, assault, kidnapping, harassment and disarming a police officer.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer does not usually name suspects before they are charged but is identifying Thompson because of his criminal history, his status as a registered sex offender and the questions raised during his civil commitment hearing.
A bail hearing is set for today, and charges are expected to be filed before the end of the week, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor's Office.
"We intend to file the most serious felony charges possible and send him back to prison for a very long time," Donohoe said.
Thompson was well known to police. Because he was a level three sex offender living in Seattle, detectives with the department's Special Assault Unit checked on him regularly, Capt. Neil Low said. State law requires authorities to check on level three sex offenders at least once every 90 days, Low said, but Seattle police checked on Thompson at least once a week.
Just last week, a pair of detectives spent 30 minutes visiting Thompson at his most recent residence, an apartment in the 4700 block of Roosevelt Way Northeast.
According to a police report, Thompson was arrested about 10 p.m. Monday after the women pointed him out to officers.
Police said four women, all in their early 20s, were smoking outside their apartment building at Ninth Avenue Northeast and Northeast 42nd Street when Thompson approached and made small talk.
Two of the women headed home and two others began walking into the building. Thompson followed the two going into the building.
When the women challenged him, saying he didn't live there and needed to leave, he allegedly grabbed one victim's purse and punched her in the eye. The two women ran to the elevator, but he prevented the doors from closing.
A 60-year-old resident who heard screaming came to help, but Thompson slugged him, knocking him to the floor of the elevator, police said.
The women told police that Thompson rifled through the purse he snatched, blocking them from leaving the elevator, and then abruptly ordered one woman to remove her blouse, threatening to "kick her head through the wall" if she did not do as he said.
The woman complied, but when he ordered her to remove more clothing she refused. He had just taken a step toward her when she heard the sound of arriving police and bolted from the elevator.
The women's friends saw what happened at the elevator and called 911. Patrol officers arrived just as the shirtless victim ran yelling from the apartment building with Thompson right behind her.
One officer tried to grab Thompson, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 220 pounds. But Thompson was able to break free and attack another officer, punching that officer several times in the head, police said.
Several officers managed to wrestle Thompson to the ground, where he allegedly tried to yank a police gun from its holster.
But police were able to handcuff him. Medics arrived to treat the two officers and Thompson, who reportedly received more than 20 stitches in his head.
Before being loaded into an ambulance, Thompson threatened a female officer, allegedly saying, "You don't know who I am. I will kill you."
Thompson's history of criminal activity and sexual violence is well documented. He was convicted in 1985 of breaking into the homes of five women between March 1985 and July 1985, raping four of them and attempting a fifth rape.
He used knives and guns in these attacks, slicing one woman's arm from elbow to wrist. In one instance, he indicated he had been watching the woman's home and knew when her husband would be gone. In another, he had worked as a painter in the victim's apartment building.
Thompson usually bound his victims, always threatened to hurt or kill them, and tried to cover their faces with pillows or other bedding.
When Thompson reached the end of his sentence in May 2002, King County prosecutors tried to have him sent to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, arguing in court documents that Thompson remained a sexually violent predator
Psychological reports cited in court documents said Thompson felt anger and hostility toward women in general and that his violence would escalate. One psychiatrist found him to be a sexual sadist.
In sessions with mental health professionals, Thompson admitted to sexually molesting relatives and to stabbing a friend in the back, leaving the young man paralyzed.
He also admitted to a history of voyeurism. He kept guns and knives with him since his teen years, he said, mostly as protection during his times dealing drugs.
When arrested for the rapes in 1985, Thompson admitted to more than 40 burglaries.
But in prison, Thompson become a model inmate, had no problems with female officers, and apparently embraced the religion of his mother, becoming a devout Jehovah's Witness and refusing any treatment beyond meeting with other members of his faith.
"Apparently, he does well in institutions," Low said.
The jury at his civil commitment hearing decided that Thompson did not meet the criteria of a sexually violent predator and he was released in October, moving in with his mother in her Ravenna neighborhood home.
On July 24, he moved to an apartment in the 4700 block of Roosevelt Way Northeast.
Low said police notified management and tenants that Thompson had moved in. Because Thompson had served his sentence, he was not under Department of Corrections supervision.
Still, Low said, Thompson followed the rules for registered sex offenders. "He reported each of his moves," Low said.
Thompson told detectives he was active with his Jehovah's Witness congregation, said he had a part-time job and a girlfriend. I wonder if she is some misguided JW? Or desperate for a husband.
But when he met with detectives last week, Thompson complained he was stymied in his efforts to enter society again.
When he tried to register for classes at a community college, he told detectives, administrators told him that if he did, they would go to the front of each of his classes and alert students of his status as a sex offender. I wonder if the elders would have done the same?
Low said that was Thompson's version of what happened, but he conceded that police have a delicate job -- balancing oversight of sex offenders without destroying their efforts to become law-abiding members of the community.
"We do the best we can to help them succeed," he said. "If they are succeeding, there are no more victims."
In Thompson's case, he said, police worried he would attack again.
"That's our fear," Low said. "A level three is somebody who climbs in through the window and attacks someone in the still of night with a high level of violence."
P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-903-5396 or [email protected]
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