As if we needed another anecdote about how Arizona fails its mentally ill residents, we bring you the story of James Copeland, a mentally ill convicted sex offender who was arrested twice in 24 hours for failing to register as a sex offender.
Copeland, who's homeless, was arrested on Sunday morning after police found him sleeping in the hallway at an apartment building at 1616 West Adams Street in Phoenix.
According to court records obtained by New Times, a resident called 9-1-1 about 8 a.m. Sunday to report that a black man was sleeping in the hallway.
Police arrived and found Copeland, who told them he knows what
trespassing is, but didn't realize he wasn't allowed to sleep in the
hallway, which is closed to the public. When police asked him whether he
thought sleeping in the hallway counted as trespassing, Copeland
responded "it might."
The officer then ran a background check on
Copeland and found out that he's a sex offender who was released from
prison in October. The officer then asked Copeland if he was a sex
offender. He answered "yes, they said I am."
Copeland told the
officer that when he was released from prison, he'd provided the address
of the overflow shelter at the Central Arizona Shelter Services
facility in the 1200 block of West Madison Street in Phoenix as his
address for the state's sex offender registry.
However, the last
address listed for Copeland on the sex offender registry was the prison
in Florence where he'd served more than two years as an inmate.
Copeland was booked into jail on one count each of failure to register as a sex offender and trespassing.
About 24 hours after his arrest Sunday, Copeland was back on the streets -- and he was arrested again.
Court
records show that police found Copeland "disoriented" and walking in
and out of traffic near 300 East Earl Drive in Phoenix.
Copeland
told police he was a sex offender and that he hadn't re-registered with
the state because he'd been living at the homeless shelter.
Once again, Copeland was arrested. He was again booked on one count of failure to register as a sex offender.
