Alerting Residents to Child Rapist Brings Controversy

Marking what is believed to be the first use in Los Angeles County of a new state law allowing police to notify residents when a sex offender moves into the neighborhood, South Pasadena police this week quietly alerted education officials that a paroled child rapist is living within walking distance of five schools.

And by Thursday, Roger Thomas O’Hare’s image was on fliers all over South Pasadena, after a Catholic school did what public schools and police brass did not do--broadcast to parents throughout the city that a paroled sex offender had moved into his father’s apartment.

Standing 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds with a rap sheet that police say runs the gambit from auto theft to rape, O’Hare, 44, may be the worst nightmare of South Pasadena parents who came to the San Gabriel Valley city because of its reputation as a safe haven for children.

But O’Hare is also virtually crippled by a chronic kidney disease, his family says, and has no record of sex crimes--or any violent crime--since being convicted of raping a girl under 14 in 1983.

Ever since he registered as a sex offender last week after his release from state prison, O’Hare has sparked a dicey debate in South Pasadena about privacy and public safety. A similar argument is being hashed out nationwide as states enact their versions of “Megan’s Law,” named for a New Jersey girl killed by a child molester who had moved into her neighborhood.

In Placentia, one of the first California communities to use the law, neighbors hounded a sex offender whose name was released by authorities. He eventually lost his job and was detained on a suspected parole violation.

Acting South Pasadena Police Chief John E. Anderson said O’Hare’s arrival has caused many sleepless nights for those who must decide whether to protect the individual or the community.

“We basically agonized over whether we should do this, because you risk panic in the community” and vigilantism, Anderson said. “But do you want to take the chance that this guy is hanging out by an elementary school or middle school?”

The police sent a bulletin with O’Hare’s photograph, description and sex offenses to the five area schools. Included in the bulletin was the name of the street and block number where O’Hare lives.

The public schools opted not to send the bulletin to the parents of their students. Officials said they believed that their only responsibility was to alert the school staff, and that without police urging, they would not announce O’Hare’s presence further.

However, Holy Family School, a Catholic elementary school of 300 located three blocks from O’Hare’s apartment, sent copies of the police flier to parents.

Holy Family also added O’Hare’s address and apartment number, which Anderson said were passed along to them by a “leak” in his department. Anderson vowed to find the source of the leak.

O’Hare could not be reached for comment Thursday, but his father, Harry, took up his defense.

Standing outside the upscale apartment building in the city where he has lived for 20 years, Harry O’Hare said none of his neighbors should fear the fact that his son has come to stay with him.

“You read all about these cases like Polly Klaas, but this nothing like that,” O’Hare said before driving away in his Cadillac. “He’s no more dangerous than you or I. I can’t believe a church put this out.”

Holy Family’s principal, Anne Murphy, said the school was cooperating with police when they distributed the fliers. She refused to comment further. Church officials, including Msgr. Clement Connolly, did not return repeated calls for comment.

Although police stressed that they had opted against notifying parents, they said Holy Family was free to do what it wished with the information.

Some parents Thursday praised Holy Family and attacked the public school district.

“I think it should be posted on the classrooms, in the streets and on every tree,” said Kristen Dube as she arrived at Marengo Elementary School to pick up one of her two children.

Mike Long, a neighbor of O’Hare and father of a Holy Family student, said: “This monster’s place is located within three blocks of the high school, three blocks of Holy Family and five blocks of the middle school. This street is heavily traveled by young girls. I don’t see why South Pasadena schools wouldn’t send out this information.”

“We were advised by the police what our responsibilities were,” Superintendent Leslie Adelson said in an interview. “Our responsibility is to inform our staff, so if they see this individual behaving strangely by schools they [can] call in. If the police feel it should be disseminated, they should do it. They didn’t ask us to disseminate it.”

Acting Police Chief Anderson said the decision to release information on O’Hare only to five schools was a careful one. “We’re obviously concerned about vigilantism,” he said. “This was not done lightly.”

There may be as many as 120 sex offenders living among the nearly 25,000 residents of South Pasadena, based on Department of Justice estimates from 1995, Anderson said. There are an estimated 22,000 registered sex offenders among the 9 million residents of Los Angeles County. The decision to single O’Hare out of the crowd was made because he had moved so close to five schools.

Because O’Hare promptly registered as a sex offender--”which not everybody does,” Anderson noted--South Pasadena police were spurred to action. Now, he said, police will comb their files to see if they should notify the public about other registered sex offenders in South Pasadena.

California’s version of “Megan’s Law” allows local law enforcement to decide which sex offenders to identify publicly and what parts of the community can be notified.

“The law specifically places the decision on whether to release information in the hands of the local law enforcement agency, because they’re the closest to the situation,” said Steve Telliano, spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

But the South Pasadena police know little about Roger Thomas O’Hare. They know that he is white, with a partly amputated left middle finger, a scar on his left knee and tattoos of a peacock and marijuana leaf on his right arm.

He was arrested in 1983 in Anaheim and convicted of rape and lewd conduct with a minor. He served one year of a three-year sentence before being paroled, South Pasadena police say.

Police have no details of the sex crimes and court files could not be accessed Thursday.

Since that crime, O’Hare has committed “several” nonviolent drug and property crimes, but has no record of additional sex crimes, said Christine Toombs, assistant regional administrator of the state probation department.

O’Hare was paroled Jan. 9 after serving about 18 months of a four-year sentence for burglary. Toombs said it is too early to know whether O’Hare has reformed.

Now, his father says, he may never get the chance--a worry voiced by Elizabeth Schroeder of the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union.

“Here is a man who has been out of this type of trouble for 14 years,” Schroeder said, “and now he’s being made into a public scapegoat, with little hope of putting his past behind him and carrying out his life.”