5-19-2009 Ohio:
Park benches, wooded areas, alleys - they are all addresses given by homeless convicted sex offenders. The Hamilton County Sheriff says that makes it especially hard to check on them when they don't report to authorities, as required by law. And - the addresses are all legal. Local 12 reporter Angela Ingram shows you the loophole in the sex offender reporting system.
Kailey Mitchell is trying to find out as much as she can about a convicted rapist. She got a card in the mail today, warning her that the man living in the abandoned house in the woods behind her home is a sexual predator. "I don't know where he's at, I don't know what he does during the day. I don't know anything and with having kids and being by myself. It freaks me out."
I would suggest to this woman and others who have similar feelings, that they ought to get together and get the legislature to have a program for "Freaked Out Folks" to unfreak them. But, the problem with that is, the legislature wants the world "Freaked Out" but they don't openly say that, this is the way of the politician to get folks to follow them around voting for stupid ideas. Hey, it keeps these politicians in office and the public pays through the nose.
That indeed is where he told the sheriff he'd be living. But, others call benches, parking lots, even the Serpentine Wall as their homes.
Three sexual predators listed an alley behind the Drop-Inn Center. We checked but, no one was home.
So what! There is no law preventing folks from "not being home," the laws permit registrants to go where they darn please and sleep whenever the choose. Further, whether or not the police have a procedure for checking on addresses of registrants, it is not up to the registrants to devise a way for the police to do what the law requires of them. If the legislature wants a "address checking" system, let them figure out how it is to work.
Secondly, the police have been issuing warrants for the arrest of a homeless person if they are not at their "registered homeless place" when the police decide to do an unannounced check, but such warrants are illegal because registrants simply do not have to be home at any time; your day could be my night, and so forth, schedules are rarely precise for homeless persons. The system of address checking is one that will never work in a free society!
If a registered sex offender said a bench in Eden Park was his address, legally there's nothing the department can do about it, they have to accept that address, but if he decides to pick up my bags and move and say for example, to a bench in Mt. Auburn, then he would be required to report a change of address to the sheriff's department.
So, all the registrants have to do is, list their address as "somewhere in the state," and that complies with the law according to the Sheriff's explanation. I see no problem here!
Sheriff's deputies try to verify addresses, but the department says it doesn't have the manpower to check unusual addresses. Some members of city council want to use global positioning monitoring devices for the most serious offenders.
Cecil Thomas-Cincinnati City Council Member: "What do you do? You got some many individuals that are homeless and they give illegitimate addresses as to where they are and where they live at."
Mitchell thinks it's a flawed system. "In the woods can mean anywhere up there and if something were to happen, how are they going to find him?"
There are about 40 homeless sex offenders in Hamilton County. The most serious sexual offenders are required to register every 90 days with the sheriff for life. That's in addition to telling authorities when they change their residence. ..News Source.. by Local12.com
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