Earl Kenneth Shriner

The final sexual assault Shriner committed in May 1989, caused a nationwide public outrage, that has been cited as one of the main catalysts for new laws allowing indefinite confinement of sex offenders.[6][7] The formation of a victims advocacy group Tennis Shoe Brigade, named in reference to the grass-roots organizations demand that the public be free to walk the streets in safety, rallying for toughening the laws, raised the public pressure on Washington's Governor Booth Gardner.[8][9] Subsequently, the Washington state legislature unanimously enacted the first "sexual predator" law, allowing to indefinitely lock up perpetrators of any sexual crime, if a "mental abnormality" causing someone to commit another sex crime can be attested.[10][11] A pivotal part of the 1990 Community Protection Act (Washington)[7] this legislation was subsequently adopted by many other U.S. states. Many people also became outraged that such a clearly dangerous sexual predator had been allowed to live in anonymity prior to the killings, and some people thought that the killings could have been avoided if people had been aware of Shriner's criminal history. As a result, the Community Protection Act also not only created a sex offender registry in Washington state, but also required community notification of the presence of the state's most dangerous sex offenders. The Community Protection Act thus is generally considered to have created the world's first publicly accessible sex offender registry; all other sex offender registries existing before this point were only available to law enforcement.

Shriner was also cited by PETA in their campaign against animal abuse as an example of notorious criminals that started torturing animals long before turning to children.[12] The Animals' Voice describes him as "being widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs' rectums and strung up cats".[13]