Miami Skirmishes Over Homeless Sex Offenders Who Claim Vacant Lot as Home

Here we go again, but, this time -if the ACLU will get involved- it will be easier to prove the intent is banishing offenders. I guess the powers that be feel it would be safe to have a park for children next to a Firehouse full of emergency equipment ready to roll at a split second; real safe for kinds in that area!

4-17-2012 Florida:

The city of Miami has rezoned a vacant lot occupied by homeless sex offenders to make it a park in order to stop the state from directing more homeless sex offenders to the corner.

The city also intends to sue the Florida Department of Corrections to remove the 23 homeless sex offenders from the lot because they are going to build a fire station nearby.

The skirmish between the city of Miami and Florida's DOC over the northeast corner of 79th Street and 10th Avenue is the latest round in a running battle over the placement of sex offenders.

"The state is actually giving them pieces of paper telling them to go there," City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff told ABC News. "They are still on probation and parole, and many of them still have ankle detectors. The state is monitoring that they are there between 5 p.m. and 6 a.m."

Registered sex offenders are barred by law from living within 2,500 feet of a school or playground, including parks where children may play. By designating the corner a park, no new offenders are able to claim the corner as their home, but those already there are grandfathered in.

Currently, there are 23 offenders listed as "transient" residents of the street corner, many sleeping in tents, Sarnoff said.

The city commissioner said this isn't the first time the state has tried to place them in a public location.

"Two years earlier the state was placing them under the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge, about three-quarters of a mile south of where they are now," Sarnoff said. "We filed suit, and they did stop."

Now, the city attorney is working to amend the results of that law suit, preventing registered offenders from listing a public street or sidewalk as their residence in the Florida sexual offenders and predators registry.

"We would like to see a major change in the state law," Sarnoff said, "a change that would make the sex offender the zone instead of the place. Make it so he must stay away from the children, he must stay away from the school, so that when he walks he is the bubble. Then, he can live in his own home as long as there are no children there."

In the meantime, the latest fight over the street corner goes on.

On March 1, the city sent the DOC a letter asking for the homeless offenders to be removed from the corner and informing the office that the city plans to build a fire station adjacent to the location. In Florida, fire stations serve as safe houses for runaway and abused children, a place for them to go to receive help. The letter sites the proximity to the transient camp as "detrimental to children in need in our community."

Phone calls the Florida State Department of Corrections for comment were not returned. ..Source.. by ASHTON MARRA

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Lake commissioners tighten sex-offender regulations, prohibit clustering

Sit together, travel together and do all sorts of other things together, but they can't live in close proximity to each other. In life we see all sorts of Ghettos' and some are considered more dangerous than this. STUPID law, 500 feet can be about every 4th or 5th house. Does anyone see a "Public Safety" context in this?

1-12-2012 Florida:

TAVARES - County commissioners moved ahead on tightening restrictions on sex offenders this week, unanimously approving a "cluster buster" ordinance that will prohibit offenders from inundating an apartment complex, mobile-home park or neighborhood.

The new restrictions, which apply to sex offenders with victims under 16, will prevent "havens" from forming in Lake, commission Chairwoman Leslie Campione said. She said the clusters are becoming a problem across the U.S.

"We're on the cutting edge to protect our children and to protect our communities," Campione said. "Even if we have challenges, we're on good ground here."

The push for tighter regulations came after a Tampa woman suggested last year the Sorrento area could be an ideal place to establish a special neighborhood for sex offenders. Barbara Farris, president of the Apopka-based SO Housing Solutions, wanted to create the community to offer housing, transportation and other services to paroled sex offenders.

In October, commissioners passed an ordinance banning sex offenders from residing within 2,500 feet of day-care centers, public and private parks, playgrounds and schools and prohibited them from living with each other unless they were related.

However, commissioners felt that wasn't enough and pushed to add the more stringent restrictions. Under the new ordinance, offenders cannot live within 500 feet of another sex offender, which County Attorney Sandy Minkoff said will prevent clustering in any part of the county.

"This would spread them out fairly significantly and prohibit any one apartment building or development being used to congregate several," Minkoff said.

Like Seminole and Hillsborough, Lake set a 300-foot "safety zone" buffer around day-care centers, schools, parks and playgrounds. Offenders aren't allowed to cross except, for example, if they're going to see a doctor or meet with their attorney, Minkoff said. And they'll have to declare themselves as sex offenders when they walk into an emergency shelter during a hurricane or natural disaster.

However, under the ordinance, sex offenders may not be forced to move out if their current living arrangements violate the new restrictions. There are more than 400 registered sex offenders in Lake. Not all of them are listed as abusing children.

Nonetheless, the action will deter offenders from moving into Lake and setting up "sex-offender villages," Commissioner Jimmy Conner said after the meeting. The restrictions send a strong message, he said.

"That is: convicted sex offenders not welcomed," Conner said. "I'm not ashamed or afraid to send that message. You ought not to be scared or timid when it comes to protecting young people. You should be bold and aggressive. And, I think, that's what we're doing." ..Source.. by Eloísa Ruano González, Orlando Sentinel

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Lake County mulls new restrictions for sex offenders

11-15-2011 Florida:

SORRENTO — Awakened by fears that a sex-offender village will pop up here, Lake County commissioners will consider new restrictions unique to Central Florida including a "cluster-buster" proposal to limit the number of sex offenders who can live in an apartment complex or mobile-home park.

Another idea likely to be discussed Tuesday is a measure aimed at stopping sex offenders from traveling through a "safety zone" around schools, day-care centers, parks and playgrounds unless they have permission or could prove a specified purpose.

"I want to take steps to ensure Lake County does not become a haven or destination for people who can't find any other place to live," Commissioner Leslie Campione said.

The broad options come seven weeks after a Tampa woman suggested the Sorrento area — and possibly areas of Seminole or Orange counties — might be a place where she could create a special neighborhood for sex offenders. Barbara Farris, who has linked herself to a for-profit venture called "Project H4O," wants to establish a community that offers housing, programming, transportation and other services to paroled sex offenders.

Farris said her plan for east Lake collapsed because of an uproar that included picketing, an Internet petition drive and a public meeting that drew 500 people to Sorrento Elementary School. But in e-mails to the Orlando Sentinel, she said she was "still developing housing for offenders." She didn't reveal specific plans or communities but added, "We are moving forward in South Fl, Central Fl and other states."

Campione said rural communities are especially vulnerable to sex-offender clusters as the remote neighborhoods lack day-care centers, schools, parks, and playgrounds, which benefit from municipal and county ordinances forbidding offenders from living no closer than 2,500 feet.

But Gail Colletta, president of the Florida Action Committee, an organization that opposes sex-offender residency restrictions as counter-productive to protecting the community, said the measures which Lake is weighing are fruitless.

"None of these things will make kids safer," said Colletta, who predicted the county will be sued if the measures are enacted.

Campione shrugged off the possibility of civil-liberty lawsuits.

"I'd prefer to err on the side of protecting the citizens of Lake County," she said.

According to a memo from Lake County Attorney Sandy Minkoff, Seminole County has "safety zones" around schools, day-care centers and parks, while Hillsborough County's zones surround arcades and zoos, as well.

Hillsborough also forbids sex offenders from comprising more than 10 percent of the tenants of an apartment complex or mobile-home park, an ordinance aimed at preventing groups of offenders from living together.

Campione said Lake may try to draft an ordinance that would apply to a residential subdivision.

High-density, sex-offender clusters and homelessness are unintended but predictable consequences of residency restrictions, which have not been proven to be an effective deterrent, said Jill Levenson, an associate professor of psychology at Lynn University in Boca Raton an authority on sex-offender restrictions.

"What do we expect?" Levenson asked. "Where do we think they are going to live?"

She said many rules restricting sex-offenders are based on misconceptions and fear rather than fact. For instance, she said, children are more likely to be sexually abused by a relative or friend than by a stranger.

She said local ordinances that prevent offenders from loitering in areas where children gather make more sense if only as "risk-management" tools.

"There may very well be certain sex offenders who shouldn't be in our parks, but that [conclusion] should be drawn from a careful assessment of an offender's history and needs," she said. ..Source.. by Stephen Hudak, Orlando Sentinel

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Davie activist cleared for pointing gun at sex offender

Notice how the content of the flyers was ignored, and in Florida, depending on what they say, could be a crime in of itself.


1-23-2008 Florida:

Prosecutors won't file charges against an activist (Valerie Parkhurst pictured right) accused of threatening to kill a registered sex offender, saying she acted in self-defense, according to documents released Tuesday.

Valerie Parkhurst, 52, faced felony charges of aggravated assault with a firearm and carrying concealed weapons after she pointed two guns at Dale Weeks, 49, in Davie on Dec. 1. Parkhurst and her attorney, Eric Schwartzreich, met with prosecutors in early January, and the State Attorney's Office decided Friday not to file formal charges.

"The defendant appears to have acted in self-defense having knowledge of Weeks' prior violent sexual offender conviction," Assistant State Attorney Jules R. Cohn wrote in a memo. He added there would be "no likelihood of conviction."

Weeks said the decision is biased.

"The bottom line is they're taking her side of the case," Weeks said. "They're sending a message that allows somebody to break the law and point or fire a pistol at anybody. It's vigilante-style law."

Police had said Parkhurst threatened to kill Weeks and his girlfriend, Maria Rodriguez, when the couple drove onto a street where Parkhurst was handing out sex offender warning fliers. The street was a couple of miles from Weeks' home, where Parkhurst had passed out fliers about him earlier and had words with Rodriguez.

During the confrontation in the 4600 block of Southwest 66th Avenue, a dead-end street, Parkhurst said she thought the couple was following her and asked them to back up. The couple, who told police they were heading to a store and made a wrong turn, said they had trouble backing up.

Parkhurst said she became scared for her life and took a pistol out of her truck to scare them off. Another heated exchange followed, and when Parkhurst retrieved a shotgun, Weeks called police.

In his memo, Cohn said Parkhurst's actions were legally acceptable under the Castle Doctrine, which allows people to protect their homes, and themselves in public places, if they feel threatened with death or bodily harm.

Weeks' and Rodriguez's credibility is also weak, the memo said. He is a felon and she has outstanding warrants for a pending worthless-checks case in Jacksonville.

Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, said the concealed weapons charge was dropped because "it appears the defendant's firearm was securely encased in a holster before it was removed for purposes of self-defense."

Possessing a concealed weapon without a license is lawful if the item is not readily accessible for immediate use, Ishoy said.

"We're very pleased with the State Attorney's resolution of the case," Schwartzreich said.

Parkhurst applied for and is enrolled in classes to qualify for a concealed weapons permit.

"I'm up in arms over this," Weeks said. "They're allowing her to get a permit, after the fact. I find that very upsetting." ..more.. by Macollvie Jean-François | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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