If you live near me in Colorado, please let me know if you want detailed information about this offender listing. If you live in CO, some of the information below will be pertinent to you. If you live in other states in the US, you might want to check your local county and state governments to see what the protocol is for notification in your area, find the websites you need, and bookmark them. I was pleasantly surprised.
Could you think of another legitimate email subject line that is more sinister?
I am glad. I am glad we have the technology that we do. I am happy there is a sex offender registry because I know that these cretins have been around as long as man has existed, and it is up to us to do what we can to protect ourselves and our children.
I am glad my county has an excellent reporting system, that we are using technology to be as proactive as possible in keeping people up to date. I am glad we have a (really nice) live person to talk to when you have questions about these creepy emails that come with links to the criminal’s web post, listing his felony crimes, committed against a child this past March.
I do not pretend that I was somehow safer before he and his family moved in across the street. I do not pretend that being in a nice area of town somehow shields us for the world. We live in a scary world. It just sucks when the scary world comes too close for comfort and you have to scare the living daylights out of your innocent young children in an effort to keep them safe.
I am really bummed out. I just had to have an awful conversation about “bad strangers” with my kids during dinner. We have had this conversation before, in fact it is an ongoing dialog in safety and listening to mom and dad. But it has always been a little ambiguous, fuzzy details, and evil bad guys with dastardly smirks and greasy hair.
This past week everything has changed.
The email from the sheriff’s office with that awful subject line arrived to tell us that a registered sex offender has moved in across the street, right across the street… paces away. In my neighborhood. On my block. Here. The flurry of emails from all of my neighbors was amazing.
I am angry. I am angry that my kids, at ages 8, 6, 5, 3, had to take that turn in their minds where “bad strangers” and “stranger danger” has taken shape into reality across the street. I am worried they will be up at night wondering. Looking out their window at the bad guy’s house. If the 13 year old predator is coming to get them. Yes, he is 13.
I am worried. I am worried that my kids’ minds would run amok with visions of this bad stranger. They have no idea about what a “sex offender” is, and we didn’t go there with this one. We tried to stay as general as possible, talking about the things that bad strangers could do (take kids and steal them), and left it at that.
I am worried that we have done it wrong. That we have scared and scarred our children. I have shown them all the sex offender’s picture from the county registry. He looks like a cool kid, someone my 8 year old would look up to. He is only 13 years old. 13.
I know it is a good lesson, I understand that they need to know. But I am angry that they chose our street and have caused us to alter forever the carefree attitude my kids had an hour ago. I know that people have a right to live wherever they wish, I just wish they didn’t pick here. Across the street. Outside my kids’ windows.
I am afraid. Not that this kid is going to come over and target my kids… well, maybe I am afraid of exactly that. It is just scary when someone whose boundaries, morals, and lines-to-stay-within are not anywhere near what “we” would consider normal or acceptable.
I spoke at length with the sheriff’s officer that manages the sex offender registry, and the information the woman there gave me made me shudder. In particular, she was able to assure me that this kid is Bad News, and that a 13 year old on the online registry is an unheard of thing that He Earned Due To The Nature of The Crime. She could not give me any real details about his case, due to the law protecting the victim, but what she did share was upsetting.
In general, she shared these tidbits that might be something to think about for your own safety, information, and peace of mind.