Keeping Kids Safe Against Sex Offenders
Keeping Kids Safe Against Sex Offenders April 27, 2006 08:31 PM CDT Reporter: Stefanie Silvey Web Producer: Jill Middleton Teri Juarez sits on her porch every day watching and waiting for her kids to get off the school bus. She says she doesn't like it when she can't see her kids. One day this past March, her 9 year old didn't make it home. Juarez says she asked her 7 year old where Anthony was, and he said Anthony didn't get on the bus that day. Juarez quickly called Tekoppel School which went on immediate lock down. The police were called...nine year old Anthony Juarez was missing. Chief Deputy Eric Williams with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department says there are places in the city that you can't find a block corner that doesn't have a registered sex offender. Williams says there are at least 400 registered sex offenders in the county, which is an extra concern when a child is missing. And there is reason for concern. Take Glenwood School, for instance. Within two miles of the school there are more than a hundred sex offenders. The only time they aren't allowed to live near a school is when they are on probation, which generally lasts no more than a year. That's why the Sheriff's Department created a sex offender registry, alerting parents and police where those offenders live. Williams says the registry gives you a tool of who is living next to you, but it doesn't really help when it comes to who is floating around out there. The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation also uses that list to determine where bus stops should be located. EVSC Safety Coordinator Randy Heidorn says it is a challenge because the sex offender list changes and addresses change on a regular basis. So, they also do their best to educate the children. Heidorn says children have one thing that is built in and God given. That is intuition. And they are changing the way they educate. It's no longer stranger danger. Officer Patrick Phernetton of the Evansville Police Department says there's another group of people called the "kinda knows." They are people we kind of know. Phernetton says of the 800,000 missing children reported every year, only about 100 are stranger abductions. He says there is no way to show children a picture and say this is what a bad guy looks like. Phernetton says it's a red flag if someone is paying an abnormal amount of interest in your child. In the case of Anthony Juarez it wasn't a stranger or a kinda know. Anthony wandered off from school after having a bad day. Police found him an hour and a half later miles away from the school at a fast food restaurant. Anthony's mom says he was crying and kept saying he was sorry. She says he told her not not worry because he didn't talk to any strangers. Police say with so many sex offenders in this area, Anthony is one of the lucky ones. Stranger abductions may be rare, but in 2000, there was an Evansville case involving a man who grabbed a nine year old girl at a school bus stop and dragged her into his car. Luckily, three men working nearby saw what happened and chased the suspect, David Market, who later admitted he planned to molest her. Earlier this year, Market was arrested again after police learned he was living near a school and was not properly registered. Market is scheduled to be released from prison next year. http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=4830648&nav=3w6o