No sex offenders in the parks?

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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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com