Sex offenders calling Central Florida shopping centers home
News About Florida Sex Offender Registry
More than a dozen registered sex offenders have listed a Central Florida Walmart as their home address.
Most people know they can go to the state database and search your home address to find if any sex offenders live nearby. However, it may not occur to people that they search the addresses where they shop.
A total of 17 sex offenders, seven of them predators, list the Walmart in Cocoa as their home.
Most of those who listed Walmart as their home address live in a homeless encampment adjacent to the store, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said.
In Orlando, 13 sex offenders list the intersection of John Young Parkway and Princeton Street as home. There’s a Walmart there, and like Cocoa, a homeless camp across the street.
In a written statement, a corporate spokesman for Walmart said “It’s disappointing to know that law enforcement allows convicted felons to use our store as their proximity address. We disagree with such a practice and must refer any other questions to police.”
Tuesday at 11 p.m. reporter Amanda Ober asks law enforcement why sex offenders can register stores as their home, and finds out what can be done to change the registration process.
My probation officer says I can shop at the Walmart in Titusville but I cannot go to the Walmart in Cocoa. Makes no sense.
Charles,
I’m also a probationer here in Brevard. Your PO is referring to the Brevard County ordinance that prohibits us from “loitering” within 1000′ of a school, park, playground, etc. Note that the ordinance stipulates that the distance is measured from the PERSON to the prohibited property. Ironically this means you can technically go to the grocery side of the Cocoa/Clearlake Rd. Walmart but not the home goods side…. unless you’re going to the pharmacy……… this whole situation is the definition of ambiguity or lunacy!!!!
Cocoa Probationer, maybe your probation officer interprets the ordinance different from mine. I am told that it applies to the property line of where the prohibited facility is located. Back when there was a child care facility in the Merritt Square Mall, I could not even go to Red Lobster or Olive Garden because the far western boundary of the mall parking lot was within 1000 feet of the far eastern boundary of the Red Lobster parking lot. Loitering was not even brought up. Just being there in the vicinity to conduct legitimate business was a violation. I spent 19 days in jail for taking two friends to Ashley’s Restaurant in Rockledge on a Sunday night for dinner because it was within 1000 feet of a closed, empty child care center on the other side of a double set of railroad tracks and a fenced in county truck ‘farm’. I didn’t even know the place existed. I can’t go to the Publix in Port St. John because it is within 1000 feet of a private tennis court in a condominium development…a court that is between the condos and the river and can’t even be seen from US 1. The same applies to several other businesses on US 1. This weekend the ordinance kept me from helping my daughter buy a camper because the business on Hopkins Street was 954 feet from a ‘podunk’ school…looks like a converted home…tucked away in a close by neighborhood. This ordinance is a concoction of uneducated bureaucrats who feel like they have to do something…anything…to justify their existence.
No, Walmart, it is disappointing to know there aar people who believe living outside a dumpy-as shopping center is their only option.
I’ve said this quite a bit and I realize most RSO’s have no choice but to be where they’re at and most stay there because of family, but I’m telling you people…GET THE HECK OUT OF CENTRAL & SOUTH FLORIDA!!! It sounds like it’s just a nightmare of stupidity down there for you guys. Between the idiots running Miami-Dade and then our good ole pal Grady Judd in Lakeland, I don’t see how you people keep putting up with it down there. I’ve met a few people who moved from south Florida to up here in north Florida and they say it’s like night and day. I’m in Duval Co. and we rarely have any issues. In fact, anyone with a predator designation might get a break because Duval might go down to 1500 ft for them. I’ve heard good things about Clay and St. Johns counties as well. It seems that it’s much better up in this area of the state, although it’s still Florida which means it’s still prone to be run by retards and inbreds. I mean if you have to, move your whole family up here, but for God’s sakes, get out of south FL and central FL if you can help it.
MJ,
(1) As you can imagine, people who have homes, families and jobs in South or Central Florida may not be able to just pick up and move forever.
(2) If you are on State Probation, you cannot travel outside the county, let alone move without permission.
(3) Duval County has other insane requirements, for example; having to put up signs on one’s home on Halloween.
Giving in not part of our gameplan. Suing and winning is. We’ve come a long way and we’re not giving up.
Just a comment about the Mass shooter at the church in Texas this week.
In Texas, a person who has escaped from a mental hospital, beaten his wife and child, and been kicked out of the military can buy and own weapons in that state. The Air Force messed up or was it intentional to not report him.
And a sex offender cannot protect themselves in Florida against such a person
There only one answer to Ms. Ober’s question but nobody wants to hear it and that’s to do away with the unconstitutional residency restrictions so these people can find places to live the other is to do away with the registry at the very least the public aspect of it so they can find jobs. Noboby wants to live like these people do It’s a ex-offenders worst fear. Everyone recognizes the problem but no policy maker wants to stick his/her neck out to fix it. I also don’t imagine anyone mentioned the humiliating burden placed on these human beings of having to report to the sheriffs office every 30 days because they are considered transient.
I shop at the Walmart by Princeton and John Young and although I don’t SEE the encampment I do see the same people around the woods there. It is also the same place where Markeith Lloyd or whatever his name was shot the police officer in broad daylight right at the front door.
It is ridiculous that anyone should have to list a shopping center or a patch of woods as their “home”. Every day I become more ashamed of the “free” country I live in.
As a footnote murderers can live wherever they want….so that seems fair. I guess they aren’t considered dangerous. -________-
What would happen, if we all just started registering temporary addresses. Like a ton of them, starting with Ron Books address or neighbor to Lauren Book?
Headlines: 60,000 SO’s in State of Florida in Bed with Ron Book and Daughter Lauren.
LMAO
If we registered Ron Book’s address unfortunately we would have to stay there each night and then go to DMV to get a new license with his address. That would be worse than having a sex offender endorsement on a license.
Wanted to add that the Brevard County ordinance i referred to in my previous comment prohibits any SO from grocery shopping, shopping for home repair materials, getting gas, going to the bank, stopping for a cold soda, going to McDonalds, and even visiting family within the 1000′ exclusion zone. If you read and strictly interpret the ordinance I can’t go to the Clerk of Courts office or the Tax Assessors office for license plates or even go to an County Commission meeting and not be in violation.
I cannot go to the Titusville City Hall to take care of airshow business but if I have personal business I can go there. Pure lunacy!