Sex Offender Lived Near School

A mistake by local law enforcement could mean sex offenders are living closer to schools and daycares than they should be.An eight year computer error at the Boone County Sheriff’s Department miscalculated the distance between sex offenders’ homes and places they are not allowed to go. Currently one sex offender was allowed to live near Lange Middle School for months, however he’s been transferred to another group home. Officers already have changed the computer glitch and are checking everyone elses address. “We are living in a pocket of schools here, three out of the four are young children that walk by here every day, every single day. And it doesn’t seem quite kosher that a sex offender could be living here with all those children going by.” said Jackie Mccord who has lived on Grace Ellen Drive for more than 30 years.When the group home of ex-convicts moved in next door to Mccord no one told her, or her neighbors about it. “I only found out that was a group home by accident, probably the parents of these children walking by here have no idea,” said Mccord.While she said the people in the home are kind, and never a bother, she’s worried police let even one child sex offender slip through the cracks. “This is the first time we have ever been notified that we had an offender living within the 1000 feet rule and it was our mistake,” said Detective Jessica Jameson with the Boone County Sheriffs Department.The department said instead of starting to track the distance from the property line, their computer system was automatically starting from the center of buildings. “We do property line to property line, so it was a miscommunication between how it was marking property and how we actually rule where they can be,” said Jameson.The mistake has been in place since the program began in 2005, because of it law enforcement have changed the system and are now double checking the location of all other offenders. They are doing all they can to make sure this problem never happens again “The safety of the public is the one thing we hold at the utmost regard,” said Jameson.It is important for everyone to remember the rule of sex offenders not living within a thousand feet of a school only applies to those convicted in Missouri after 2004, or out of state after 2008. Therefore other sex offenders are legally allowed to stay living in the group home on Grace Ellen Drive.ABC 17 News tried to get a hold of the owner of the group home on Tuesday to hear his thoughts on what happened, but he never called back.