Angry that a convicted sex offender allegedly raped a 13-year-old in Brackett Park in September, city Councilor Frank Nicastro wants to bar anyone on the state’s sex offender registry from entering a municipal park.
“We have to take a strong stand here,” Nicastro said.
City councilors unanimously agreed to send the idea to the Ordinance Committee to work out the language, which is likely to be modeled on a similar statute that Danbury enacted.
“Our parks should be considered safe havens for the youth of our city,” Mayor Art Ward said.
Danbury’s law “prohibits child sex offenders who are required to register in this state from being present in any child safety zone,” according to a June report by the Office of Legislative Research in Hartford.
The report said that Danbury defines a child safety zone as “a public park, playground, recreation center, bathing beach, swimming or wading pool, or sports field or facility and surrounding land.”
Nicastro said he would like Bristol to follow Danbury’s lead.
Nicastro, a state representative and former mayor, said he doesn’t want sex offenders to have access to playgrounds and recreational areas where children gather.
There are currently 97 registered sex offenders living in Bristol. Most were convicted of crimes that did not involve children.
But a particularly awful crime in September convinced Nicastro that action is needed.
According to the police, 26-year-old Bernard “Bernie” Wandlaincourt sexually and physically molested a girl half his age behind some bleachers at 9:30 p.m. on a mid-September Monday at Brackett Park.
Police received a report from a 13-year-old city teen around 9:30 p.m. Monday that a man known to her only as Wandlaincourt was a convicted sex offender recently released from prison, where he served a sentence for a 2001 sexual assault similar to the one he allegedly committed at the park.
At the time of the assault, Wandlaincourt was required to register as a sex offender and was wearing an electronic monitoring ankle-bracelet so that the Department of Probation could monitor him, according to police and court records.
He is charged with risk of injury to a minor, third-degree assault, second-degree threatening, first-degree sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping.In Danbury, Wandlaincourt would face a $100 fine if he entered a city park.
Bristol’s ordinance panel, chaired by city Councilor Craig Minor, will consider the proposed law and could recommend its adoption within a few months.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
12 comments:
As one who visit the parks with my children and my wife I believe this is a good start in getting the dangerous people and trouble-makers out of the parks.
Bad behaving kids as well as law-breaking adults are definately a problem and a detriment to using the parks.
Thank you Mayor Frank. Keep up the good work.
Ninety-seven registered sex offenders in Bristol!
What are we, a dumping ground for the region's criminals ?
Shocking.
Hartford - 484
Bridgeport - 244
Danbury - 41
East Hartford - 105
Meriden - 94
New Haven- 409
Waterbury - 206
Look out East Hartford and Waterbury, we're moving on up!
I think they should have cameras in all of the parks and have a security person monitoring them from a central location.
Also, I agree with baring sex offenders from the parks, but just keep in mind that not all offenders have crimes against children, teens or young people on their records.
Some of them are from adults only.
Not making excuses for them, just want to make sure everyone is clear on it.
Guess Meriden can just eat Bristol's dust!
And just do we enforce this? Who will be checking? Can't enforce things now and we want to add more?
If the city hopes to enforce this there will need to be added police patrols in the parks. Criminals do not work on the honor system. You can make all the rules you want but if no one is watching it won't matter. Also will the city be addressing all of the other crimes that take place in the parks (ie drug dealing, prostitution etc)?
No problem, Frank will solve it at the state level.
Ask him, he'll tell you, perhaps even if you don't ask.
3 years ago it was around 60. Thats a significant jump, dont you think? What's increasing faster? The illeagal apartments that our proven leaders have refused to adress, or the sex-offenders being moved into them? I'd say its about neck and neck.
I guess the poster before doesn't know about "code enforcement." You can't get rid of the illegal apartments unless you beef up the code, which is being done. It's important to note that this problem was created way before the last administration when our code and zoning laws were inadequate to handle what was happening with regard to out-of-state landlords invading our city. Now that they're here, it will take time to straighten out what's happened. As far as placing sex offenders in these apartments, there's nothing the city can do about that. If they can move into beautiful suburban areas, they can certainly live in an apartment in the center of town. The problem didn't happen overnight and it certainly won't be taken care of overnight. Give our code enforcement a chance to work.
Frank,
Is this another "Group Home" publicity move?
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