Dad Crusades For Child Safety

First, Marc Klaas fought the fear.

“I lived in abject terror for 65 days,” said Klaas, father of 12-year-old California murder victim Polly Klaas. “Nothing is harder than not knowing where your child is.”

Then he fought against a system he says favors the accused and convicted.

“It seemed that the criminals had more rights than the rest of us,” Klaas said.

“Everyone who knew the man who got Polly knew he was capable of doing it.”

Now, he fights complacency.

Klaas is in Spokane today and Saturday to promote child safety. He hopes to persuade people to get more involved in children’s issues so another 12-year-old girl doesn’t become a victim.

“It can happen anywhere,” he said Thursday. “If they can get Polly, they can get anybody.”

Last June, a California jury convicted Richard Allen Davis of snatching Polly Klaas out of her home in October 1993 and killing her. The case drew national headlines for months.

Davis, who later led police to the girl’s body, is on California’s death row.

Shortly after Polly’s death, Marc Klaas began the Klaas Foundation for Children, a nonprofit group that advocates protecting children from violence.

He travels around the country leading workshops on child safety issues. He will present one of his workshops tonight at 7:30 at Dishman Dodge in the Spokane Valley.

“Our hope is, by the time this meeting is over, people are going to be more involved, more understanding and more motivated to do something about child safety,” Klaas said.

He said he encourages people to lobby legislators to pass tougher laws on sentencing and monitoring convicted sex offenders.

He also advocates a two-strikes-and-you’re-out policy requiring life imprisonment for repeat child molesters.

“You could possibly be railroaded once,” Klaas said. “But two convictions show you can’t live within the rules of society, that you can’t be trusted.”

He also urged people to watch out for one another, to keep an eye on their own neighborhoods.

“At the trial, 10 people said they had seen the guy who got Polly in the neighborhood, that he had dead eyes and that he scared them,” Klaas said. “Yet, not one of those people ever called the cops.”

Most of all, he said, parents should talk to their children about the realities of the world, whom they can trust and how to get help if they need it.

“When I talk to kids, they want to know those things,” Klaas said. “They want that information. It’s generally the parents who are afraid to talk about it.”

Parents need to get over that fear, he said, or they might wind up facing an even tougher fear later.

“Maybe I can convince somebody that they don’t want to be me enough that they’ll get involved, do something,” Klaas said.

“It’s tough for me every day. It’s tough when I wake up in the morning. It’s tough when I go to bed at night.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: DISCUSSION TONIGHT Marc Klaas will lead a panel discussion on child safety tonight at 7:30 at Dishman Dodge, 7700 E. Sprague. The panel also will include Spokane County sheriff’s Capt. Doug Silver and Dennis Mitchell of U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt’s office. On Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Klaas Foundation for Children will offer free fingerprint and photograph identification for children, also at Dishman Dodge.