The following story was reported by Tampa’s WFLA. Apparently the City’s Police Department Website had inaccurate locations for sex offenders. One showed a registered offender living in downtown Tampa, while they were actually in South Carolina… Hmmm… what about the FDLE’s site which shows people on their registry who are no longer in the State, deported or even deceased????
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An 8 On Your Side investigation reveals issues with the Tampa Police Department’s interactive crime map. The map works in conjunction with RAIDS Online. When selecting the option to look at sex offenders and predators, 8 On Your Side discovered incorrect and missing data.
In one case, a registered sex offender shown to live in Downtown Tampa is actually incarcerated in a prison in South Carolina, according to the Federal Department of Law Enforcement. RAIDS Online also shows just one registered sex offender living in all of South Tampa, but according to the FDLE that offender died.
8 On Your Side contacted the Tampa Police Department and RAIDS Online. The President of Bair Analytics, which runs RAIDS Online, said the data comes from a private company called Offender Watch. Not Tampa PD.
“What we’re going to do is replace the entire state of Florida, as opposed to using the Offender Watch data that we’re using right now, we’re going to replace all of Florida with FDLE data,” he said.
Within hours, FDLE data was added to the map.
Laura McElroy, Tampa Police Department spokeswoman, said the department changed its website as well and are including a link to the FDLE’s site so people can go straight to the source.
“You found a glitch in our system and we have now worked with the vendor and fixed it, so we thank you for finding that,” she said.
RAIDS Online has also fixed similar problems with sex offender and predator information throughout the entire state.
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