WPLG Local 10 News Sinks to New Low
Last night, Local 10 News broadcast the second part of it’s series on Sex Offenders. This time, their issue was “where sex offenders work”.
They featured two registered citizens; one working for a carpet cleaning company and the other doing electrical, plumbing and handyman work. Their crimes were adjudicated 22 and 20 YEARS ago, respectively. Neither have subsequent sex offenses, neither are on probation and both, apparently, are functioning and employed in the community decades after their offense.
What is wrong with that Local 10? Why is it so “shocking” that they are working as cleaners and doing electrical work? If they were teachers and babysitters, I’d understand calling them out and shaming them, but what do you expect sex offenders to do besides labor jobs? Where do you expect them to work if not in communities? Landscaping in the desert?!?!
Reporter Ross Palombo could have easily spun the story differently… Here are two guys who committed crimes 20 years ago, completed their sentences and probation, did not re-offend, and are productively employed and reintegrated in the community. Instead, they expose where FORMER offenders LAWFULLY work and live!
What do they honestly expect will happen? Don’t they realize they are shaming innocent employers who kindheartedly were willing to give someone a second chance? Don’t they realize they will likely cause them to lose their jobs along with their ability to support their families?
If Local 10 news is so concerned about lawbreakers and their proximity to places, why are they not concerned about Local 10 Reporter Jeff Weinsier, who, in 2007, was arrested for carrying a firearm onto a school safety zone, resisting arrest and trespassing?
The charges were eventually dropped because of a technicality (it was determined the police had no grounds to search him, which is what led to the discovery of the gun) but it doesn’t change the fact that the guy illegally brings a gun to a school! Aren’t school shootings a significant concern to parents? Why isn’t Local 10 concerned about Jeff Weinsier living or working close to children? More ironic; why is Jeff Weinsier doing a report on school violence for Local 10 last week (http://www.local10.com/news/miamidade-schools-make-top-8-in-state-for-fights/32832376)?
The point is not to shame Jeff Weinsier – he probably regrets what happens and learned from it. But that probably holds true for the two guys who committed their offenses 20 years ago.
Local 10 has merely shown in this piece that they are ignorant of sex offender facts and willing to sink to new and dangerous lows to improve their ratings at the risk of people’s lives. Sad!
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This make my heart ache – it makes me angry too – but why??? Why do they do this – we know the results can and often are very bad. i wonder if we can post on the actual news story or contact the reporter to tell him what we think of him.
I question why the need to hunt down people who have done something wrong years ago and have paid their debt. They have not been in trouble have hard enough time getting jobs yet you see the need to hunt them down because of a law that lets their information be poste for anyone in the world to see. It doesn’t matter if someone murders someone or other heinous crimes and no one knows if the live next door to you work with you etc. You profess to be protecting the community form these heinous people who have done nothing wrong for years. What about the harm you will inflict on any children and other family members they have by this report. What you and the registry are doing is no different than what was done to the Jews by Hitler. This causes people who have no understanding why these people got in trouble but there are those that will kill them and family members from these type of reports. There is a difference in what people are arrested for. It could be they urinated in public, been a teenager and had sex with another teenager, been caught in the sex stings on Craigslist where no one was touched. The problem is when you report a sex offense you don’t differentiate between offender or predator and there is a great difference. I question how you sleep at night if you knew what is happening to these people and their children and other family members. I question how many people that went through their early years through college who has not done something that may be considered a sex offense so lets be careful of how we condemn others.