Residents unhappy with sex offender cluster in their area

South Florida ABC affiliate, WPLG, Channel 10, has a long history of sensationalizing sex offender stories and creating hysteria to get ratings. They are even so happy to shame sex offenders that it’s one of the main tabs on their website under the news section; “Mugshots” and “Sex Offenders”.

Yesterday they aired another of their “let’s create some drama” pieces which can be found here and which is copied and pasted below. I strongly suggest FAC members post comments on their article and contact the reporter; Ross Palumbo [email protected]

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MIAMI –

A Miami mother is appalled at the number of sex offenders living in her neighborhood.

“They’re everywhere,” Sofia Ramez said. “But mostly, they’re here.”

It is the neighborhood Ramez has counted on much her life: 23 years of living there, three children raised there, one mobile home owned there. All of it in ZIP code 33142.

“I can’t afford anything else and rent is expensive,” she said about the modest conditions.

There is also something in the neighborhood she never counted on: 44 registered sex offenders live alongside her.

“It’s crazy,” Ramez said. “All of them come over here and there’s kids here. You’ve got kids playing here every day.”

In South Florida, there are 1,690 sex offenders in Miami-Dade County, 1,046 in Broward County and 138 in Monroe County. The single-largest cluster in all three is Miami-Dade ZIP code 33142, where there are 149. Forty-four of those live in the same trailer park as Ramez.

One of those listed in state documents is Angel Sanchez. Records say he is a “sexual predator” and has been convicted of six crimes from sexual battery to molestation.

He said it’s because of the law itself that he has to live in the neighborhood. The rules of 2,500 feet away from schools, parks, bus stops and homeless shelters don’t just narrow down his choices, but the choices of those who live alongside him.

“They don’t allow us to live in the places that we find,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “They put us in this predicament.”

“What do you think when you hear those numbers?” investigative reporter Ross Palombo asked.

“They’re scary,” Ron Book said.

It’s a scare Miami has seen before. Hundreds of sex offenders once were living under the Julia Tutle Causeway in a place once called Bookville. It was named after the man who helped write the very laws that helped put them there.

“So it’s the same problem, just a different ZIP code?” Palombo asked.

“Well, right,” Book said. “Look, I hate the fact that there are clusters.”

Those clusters, Book said, are an endless side-effect of keeping sex offenders separate from people — far from some people, but too close to others.

This one ZIP code, even with its middle and high schools, is the victim of that imperfect calculation.

“It’s a scary situation to me,” Book said. “I would not want my children there.”

And not everyone is even aware of the situation.

“You didn’t know?” Palombo asked a woman living in 33142.

“No!” she said.

She just found out that a registered sex offender lives next door to her. He was convicted of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12-15 years old. Her son is 14 and her daughter is 7.

“It’s bad. I’m moving!” She said.

“What would you say to her?’ Palombo asked Book.

“I would tell her to move away,” Book said.

For those who moved there before the problem, though, like Ramez, that’s not advice they’re willing to follow.

Her 23 years in the 33142 with three kids and now 44 sex offenders all add up to a new math problem that she, like lawmakers, just can’t figure out.

“Why bring them here, where there’s so many kids?” Ramez said. “There’s many, many kids … I think as much as in school.”

“What do you tell your children?” Palombo asked.

“I tell them, ‘Never go near the fence. Never, never, never.'”

None of the registered sex offenders in the area is doing anything wrong, they are just following the law — a law that helps create the clusters. The good news for Ramez is that city crime statistics over the last five months show no sex crimes in her area.