Sex Offender List Debuts to Scant Use

California residents had their first crack Tuesday at the Megan’s Law database listing the whereabouts of about 64,000 sex offenders, but only a handful of people turned out locally to check the criminal records of their neighbors.

Those who did, however, had a mission.

“I’ve got daughters, and I want to know--excuse my French--where the freaks are at,” said Charles Chapman, a 32-year-old father of three who pulled the names of every convicted sex offender in his San Pedro neighborhood.

The release of the much-anticipated CD-ROM database, accessible to the public at some area police and sheriff’s stations, caps months of waiting and speculation over the impact of Megan’s Law, named for a 7-year-old New Jersey girl slain by a paroled molester. The database is intended to list the names of all California residents convicted of a serious sex offense since 1944, along with their ZIP codes--but not addresses--and a photograph, if available.

Each state in the nation will lose funding under federal law if it does not adopt a version of Megan’s Law enabling police to notify the public of the locations of sex offenders. But California’s law goes further than any other by placing all those locations into a database that can be viewed by the public.

Since September, California police have been able to warn residents about sex offenders. In most cases, when this was done the offenders fled the area due to either neighborhood protest or media scrutiny. Indeed, three Orange County cities Monday notified residents about 17 sex offenders, and at least one neighborhood protest was expected Tuesday night to try to drive the molester out.

But Tuesday marked the first day the databases were available in police stations in cities with populations above 200,000 and sheriff’s stations in every county.

As anticipated, there were some glitches with the roll-out.

Authorities discovered there was a flaw that allowed the public to view sex offenders’ home addresses and scrambled to distribute blocking software at the last minute, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Roy Pugh. But in the LAPD’s West Los Angeles station, the first few visitors saw the addresses anyway. Police said they later corrected the problem.

At the LAPD’s Central Division, the computer screen froze as Chapman eyeballed pictures of neighborhood molesters, and he had to return to work as his lunch hour ended. Long Beach police found deceased and incarcerated offenders on the list, even though they had asked state officials to remove them from the database weeks ago.

Yet despite the flaws, despite the anxiety among some police and civil libertarians that the wide release of this information will spark vigilantism, Tuesday was still a happy day for some concerned residents.

*

For example, a 35-year-old Lomita mother, who would not give her name, jotted down the names and descriptions of the 30 sex offenders listed in her ZIP code and said she would distribute them around her neighborhood.

“These people are going to be harassed,” she said, “and they need to be.”

She said she was disappointed that only about half of the files included photos. But the photos she saw shocked her.

“Everybody looks so normal,” she said. “[One] guy is someone I could’ve dated. That’s really spooky.”

Even more disturbing to her and several others across Southern California were the sheer numbers of convicted sex offenders listed. The about 64,000 people, overwhelmingly rapists and child molesters, represent one out of every 150 adult men in California, according to state officials. (Virtually all of the offenders are male.) There are more than 20,000 registered in Los Angeles County alone. Even Simi Valley, statistically the safest city in the country, has 37 registered sex offenders.

Chapman’s San Pedro ZIP code has 113.

“That’s sick,” Chapman muttered as he scrolled down the screen, trying to memorize faces.

State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren acknowledged in a press conference last week the fear that the high numbers can generate. “I don’t want people to panic,” he said.

Still, even seasoned law enforcement personnel were reeling from the sheer numbers of offenders listed. At the Carson sheriff’s station, one of the only people to use the database was Deputy Terenna Rivera. She checked her neighborhood and didn’t like what she saw.

“I need to move,” she said.

The number of people using the database varied widely from place to place. The Carson and Altadena stations were virtually empty, for example, but a dozen people drifted through the LAPD’s Van Nuys division to look at the database.

Law enforcement and the media seemed to be the most frequent users of the CD-ROM. In Ventura County, only five residents examined the database--joining two Ventura County Sheriff’s Department criminologists and four reporters.

In Orange County, only 10 people scheduled appointments at the sheriff’s station in Aliso Viejo; one more stopped by the department’s headquarters in Santa Ana for a look.

“I think this is going to be a typical response,” Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson said of the turnout. “The public isn’t nearly as concerned or interested in this as the media would like to believe.”

*

A year ago, when the state Department of Justice released a book listing California’s 1,600 highest-risk registered sex offenders by county, Wilkerson said a total of five residents showed up at sheriff’s headquarters in Orange County to thumb through it.

“It can be a tool if you are worried about a particular person or you perceive a threat and want to see who someone really is,” Wilkerson said. “I think most people will use it that way.”

Police on Tuesday were hesitatingly implementing the other prong of Megan’s Law, testing their ability to publicize the identities of sex offenders. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were finalizing fliers identifying their about 100 so-called “high risk” sex offenders--criminals with multiple violent sexual felony convictions--for display in stations and libraries. At the Norwalk sheriff’s station and nearby city halls, fliers on five sex offenders were already up.

The fliers cannot be distributed until deputies have verified the information listed on the CD-ROM. Authorities are proceeding cautiously because the database is so inaccurate--the most recent estimate is that 40% of the state’s offenders are dodging registration, many by changing addresses without notifying local police.

Long Beach police Tuesday reported that they still found dead and incarcerated sex offenders listed as living in their city--even though they had asked state officials to delete the names. In Norwalk, Sheriff’s Capt. Marvin Dixon said there were still more than two dozen erroneous entries for his area.

As business hours neared their end Tuesday, some police were underwhelmed by the number of people using the databases.

“I didn’t expect to be deluged, but I’m surprised we didn’t have more traffic,” Dixon said.

In San Francisco, only five people--including two reporters--had used the database by late afternoon.

Said San Francisco Police Lt. Tom Bruton: “Maybe people don’t want to know.”

Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein and Bonnie Hayes and correspondents Nick Green, Joseph Hanania and Scott Steepleton contributed to this report.