'He's in danger': Sister of 75-time repeat offender pleads for city to force treatment

SEATTLE -- For the first time, the sister of a prolific repeat offender is talking about her fears for her brother and the community if he doesn't get help.

Francisco Calderon has 75 convictions and is on a list of 100 repeat offenders profiled in a system failure report. Of those, 93 have re-offended since that report was released a year ago.

But Calderon has become the unwitting poster child for Seattle's criminal justice dilemmas, getting plucked from obscurity and placed into the spotlight one year ago after municipal court judge Ed McKenna went against a plea bargain that would have released him from jail for punching a random stranger.

Because of sentencing rules, a one-year sentence became six months.

And less than 36 hours after his release, he's back in custody for throwing coffee on a toddler's face.

He pleads guilty with an explanation, but it would become his 75th conviction.

He agreed to enroll in drug treatment in lieu of jail, but walked away the same day he got there, and got arrested again.

"I wish I would have stayed in treatment, but I didn't," Calderon would later tell the judge.

Recently, Calderon's sister spoke with KOMO News for her first on-camera interview about her troubled brother.

"He is in danger, but so is the community whenever he enters it," Ana Barnett said.

I asked if her brother could make a rational decision right now.

"No, he hears voices and he responds to them," Barnett said. "People are getting hurt; he's been hurt."

She says the criminal justice system has let her once vibrant brother down.

"He loved fishing, and he loved exploring," Barnett said.

Then, fatherly abuse changed everything.

"He started committing crimes and running away at the age of 10," Barnett said. "He was always in (juvenile detention); he was always on the street. And when you start using drugs in an early age and there's no intervention or any time of therapeutic involvement, then it just escalates."

Court records show every time Calderon is ordered into drug abuse or mental health treatment, he doesn't stick with it.

McKenna says as a judge, he can't force Calderon to stay in treatment. He can't talk about the Calderon case, but as a municipal court judge, he doesn't have the latitude to involuntary commit people to treatment like a Superior Court judge for guys like Calderon, who repeatedly commit misdemeanor crimes like punching someone in the face or throwing coffee on a 2 year old.

"As a court, can't do anything else other than hold them for 72 (hours) to be seen by... to see if they can be further committed and if they are not, they are simply released back on the street," McKenna said. "We see that over and over and over..."

Barnett says she would like to see her brother forced into treatment.

"He's going to die on the street or he's going to die in jail, but eventually something is going to happen, somebody's going to get hurt, or it's either going be him," Barnett said.

A bill that allow authorities to take control over people like Calderon -- conservatorship - never made it to vote by state lawmakers this month.

Wednesday night at 11 p.m., Matt Markovich tells the story of the judge in the case and the attempts by defense attorneys to block him from hearing any cases.