WCNC Investigators find dozens of CMS bus stops within 600 feet of sex offenders’ addresses
2-14-2008 North Carolina:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When convicted sex offenders live near your kids’ school bus stop, how close is too close? Six-hundred feet? How about across the street?
And how many is too many? Three sex offenders within 600 feet? Four sex offenders? Five?
“He’s a convicted sex offender? I had absolutely no idea.”
That was one neighbor’s reaction at an apartment complex on Sharon Lakes Road, as the WCNC Investigators went knocking on doors -- looking for five convicted sex offenders with addresses on North Carolina’s Sex Offender Registry within 600 feet of the school bus stop at Sharon Lakes and Mereview Court.
Parents waiting for the afternoon school bus with their kids on board also had no idea.
“Five? Within this area?” asked one parent. “That’s terrible,” said another parent, shaking her head. “Freaking pitiful,” was the reaction of a third mom.
At the Sharon Lakes and Mereview bus stop, where buses for four different schools pick up and drop off children, the neighborhood sex offenders on the Sex Offender Registry include two men convicted of taking indecent liberties with minors. There’s also a convicted rapist who lists his home as an apartment right across the street from the bus stop.
“Why would a bus stop be here? And a sex offender right there?” asked one mom gesturing to the apartment behind her. “That's terrible.”
“He might be watching. That s**t is too close for comfort,” said another, who added she’s had problems with other adult men at this bus stop before.
WCNC: “This guy is watching your daughter?”
Parent: “Watching her.”
WCNC: “After she got off the bus?”
Parent: “After she got off the bus. My kids and the people in the neighborhood need to be protected. Because there's a lot of little girls over here.”
The WCNC Investigators found at least 23 other Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus stops that also had three or more convicted sex offenders living within 600 feet, according to their addresses on the Sex Offender Registry.
But a spokesperson for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools admitted that CMS didn’t know that the sex offenders’ addresses were so close to school bus stops -- until WCNC told them. That may be because CMS doesn't do what we did -- matching up the school system's own computer list of bus stop locations with the sex offender database available right on the Internet, then mapping both together to see how close they really are.
Instead, CMS issued a written statement, saying they are "not aware of any studies or evidence indicating that using this database or moving a stop one block further from a known sex offenders' home results in an actual improvement in student safety."
The statement says "such a move could inadvertently place a bus stop in a more dangerous location." And CMS adds that they "work closely with the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office to monitor sex offenders who live near schools, and to alert principals and parents of possible concerns."
But the parents whose kids wait at Sharon Lakes and Mereview every day say nobody alerted them.
“They should tell people a sexual offender lives in your area,” said one parent leaving the bus stop with her children.”
Another mom reacted angrily to finding out about the sex offenders from WCNC, instead of from the school system. She says the only thing worse than knowing there are convicted sex offenders nearby is not knowing.
“If they can't do anything about putting the bus stop any further, why aren't we informed? Why not? They would want to know if their kid was in the neighborhood with the bus stop with the sex offender. Yeah. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't y'all?” ..more.. by JEFF SONIER / WCNC
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