Yes We Have No Sex Offenders

It's not uncommon for me to receive mail at my home that doesn't belong to anyone at my address.  I get the occasional thank-you note meant for someone at the Best Buy headquarters at 7601 Penn Avenue South, and most commonly, legal notices intended for a place at 2601 Penn on the southside.  I do try to get these to their rightful owner.  But when I was the recipient of a letter from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, I opened the mail immediately and without checking to see who it was really for.

It turns out that a certain Donald Harold Hanson has told someone that he lives at "Apt 1" of 2601 Penn Avenue North, which is odd because I don't remember ever having someone of that name live in my home.  I don't seem to remember having apartments either, though, so who's keeping track?

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Donald Hanson is...

Guess Which Park Has a Sex Offender Wall?

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

After a meeting tonight, I was leaving Farview Park when I noticed a few kids gathered around a poster, studying it rather carefully.  A staff person was encouraging them to take a good look and remember the faces.  I went to take a look myself, and saw that this was a list of TWENTY-FOUR LEVEL THREE SEX OFFENDERS living in close enough proximity to a park that someone in charge needed to put this poster up.

I asked if any other parks in Minneapolis had to do this, and if so, to the same degree, and the staff person was not aware of another such poster at any park in the city.  When we got on the topic of the high concentration of L3SO's in NoMi and how there is a state law forbidding it, but yet it remains unenforced, he said I must have been about the fourth or fifth person to bring that topic up while looking at this poster.

I've stayed away from the L3SO issue because I tend to think the hyperbole and rhetoric don't quite match the true level of risk posed.  That being said, the research done on JNS about this has convinced me that the imbalanced concentration here is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.

And it bears repeating:  Our park has a poster with TWENTY-FOUR L3SO'S that our kids have to be on the lookout for.  Recognize a few of them?  We've got Edgar Earl Lenear and Peter Rickmyer for starters.

TWENTY-FOUR.  Ugh.