So today I was passing out my food drive bags to my farm (Olinda Ranch in Brea, CA) and I noticed someone had posted a flyer on the gang mail boxes. My first thought was.... oh great another cat or dog eaten by a coyote, but to my surprise this was not the contents of this flyer. This flyer said..."Registered Sex Offender Living in Our Neighborhood!" It went on to give this man's first middle and last name, hair and eye color, height, weight, and exact address. Then it ended with something like... "keep your Children safe and keep this man away from our homes."
Now let me preface this with my wife Mindy and I just had our first child about 9 months ago. Our daughter is named Riely and she is the biggest joy of our lives. However I found myself feeling a little uneasy about this posting. The Father part of me started thinking "Oh Crap... what if this guy is prowling around at night looking for a child to abuse." But then the human side of me said "Wait, Wait, Wait... no where in that flyer did it say what this Man did to be registered as a sex offender. What if he was caught skinny dipping at the beach as a teenager? (that is considered a sex offender in CA) What if he was peeing in public? (Gross but not exactly what I think of as a sexual offender).
So I came home and looked it up. I wanted to give this Man the benefit of the doubt. With about 2 min of searching the http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/website, I was not only able to locate all of the same information that was on this flyer, but also a picture and the fact that he was convicted of "LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS."
So sad! This stuff just breaks my heart. I feel for that young person and their family. I fell for everyone who knows that this man is in the neighborhood and is scared. And call me crazy, but I even feel bad for this man Robert. He made a horrible, horrific choice to follow his sinful nature. I wish I would have been right about him and I have never even met him.
So what do you do with this information? Do you live in fear? Do you stand outside his house with signs and march around in circles until he moves? Do you try to show him love while still doing everything in your effort to keep your and everyone else's children safe? YES... that is the one I am going to choose.
Cheers
Aaron
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