Group Home’s Point of Peril: Is the Danger Inside or Outside? : Neighbors say one of the residents, a convicted sex offender, poses a threat to their children. Operators of the house say they fear ‘vigilantes’ will harm staff and clients.

They assemble every morning, before dawn.

Bundled in mufflers, hats and winter coats, they gather in a pasture surrounded by the oak woods and rolling hills of this rural township. Then they lift their signs and begin their daily picketing of a home across the street.

The neighbors’ primary target is Peter G. Anderson, one of three mentally retarded residents living in the Ravenna Ranch group home. Anderson is a convicted sex offender, and as the neighbors see it, a menace. But the home itself has also drawn their ire.

“We’re not leaving till they leave,” said Barb Kienberger, wearing a pink jacket and hat and carrying a protest sign. “We don’t trust them. We want to protect our children.”

But critics say this is merely an excuse for acts of terrorism and a trampling of the civil rights of the home’s three residents.

“They taunt retarded people,” said Jim Perron, administrator and part owner of Thomas Allen Inc., the group home operator. “They’re vigilantes. It’s almost cultish.”

“We’ve almost become like hostages,” said Perron, who said the home now has a cellular phone as a precaution in case the phone lines are cut some night. “We’ve also hired an extra staff person who’s out there at night. Not to provide services to clients but for security.”

“I think it’s pretty doggone extreme when people stand out there morning and night,” said Luther Granquist, deputy director of the Disability Law Center at the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis. Granquist filed a federal civil rights suit on behalf of the three men. “Don’t those people have something better to do with their time?”

The suit alleges that neighbors have tailed group home workers in their cars, that a yard light on the home’s driveway was shot out and that firearms have been shot near the premises.

One of the home’s residents is a former Laotian refugee who cowers in the corner when he hears gunshots, thinking he is about to be killed, Perron said.

The lawsuit also says that Anderson, 37, has been singled out. Signs have called him a “baby raper,” and he has been taunted as he tends to his pet rabbits, it said.

Authorities say some incidents are being investigated. “There have been police calls from both sides--the ranch and picketers,” said Lt. Gary Varner of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Department.

The neighbors deny most of the allegations and contend their protest has been peaceful and lawful. They say they support the rights of the mentally retarded to live in group homes in the community but don’t believe those rights should extend to child molesters. They also say the home’s presence hurts their property values, a contention that advocates for the disabled reject.

Group homes have proliferated during the last few decades as society has released people with mental disabilities from institutions. Community opposition to group homes may have declined somewhat as public awareness of disabilities has improved, but it remains a problem, according to Lee Carty, spokeswoman for the Mental Health Law Project in Washington.

Community discrimination against group homes helped lead to amendments to the Civil Rights Act in 1988 that prohibit housing discrimination against disabled people.

“The NIMBY (not in my back yard) posture is widespread; it’s written about all over the country,” said Beth Pepper, staff attorney for the project. “People continue to react to stereotypical fears about mental retardation and other mental disabilities.”

Nevertheless, a core group has protested here at least 20 hours a week since April. Each day, they show up before the home’s residents go to work and again after the residents return at night. All three residents are driven to local jobs. Anderson works at a casket company and at a workshop for people with disabilities.

At the protest site, an American flag flies overhead, on a post, along with a sign reading: “Danger to Children.” There’s a small white trailer; fires are often set for warmth in the evening. “The point I reached is that I feel I have to be out here protecting my children,” Kienberger said last week, holding a sign that reads: “Neighbors United Against Thomas Allen Inc.”

Kienberger is one of seven area residents out this foggy winter morning, which is quiet except for the mooing of a nearby cow and the passing of a truck to sand the icy road.

The neighbors don’t trust Thomas Allen to keep close enough tabs on Anderson’s whereabouts. “Wasn’t it just a week ago Sunday he was out walking around?” Dolores Byer asked of the group.

“There should be a difference between deinstitutionalizing some people and deinstitutionalizing convicted sex offenders,” said Mike Justen, bundled against the winter’s chill in a camouflage vest over a red shirt, wool pants and thermal boots. “We’ve done a lot of talking with legislators.”

The home opened a year ago. A bit later, one of Anderson’s former victims recognized him in the neighborhood. That’s when word spread that a sex offender was living nearby.

Anderson’s most recent conviction stems from a 1986 incident. According to court documents, Anderson, who has a ninth-grade education, turned himself over to police in Hastings, a city south of St. Paul that is a few miles from here, and admitted that he had molested a 9-year-old boy on a fishing trip a few weeks earlier.

Anderson’s admission brought his fourth conviction for criminal sexual conduct.

Anderson served several months in jail and remains on probation under a 7 1/2-year sentence. He was also ordered to enter a supervised living arrangement and was forbidden to spend time alone with children. The judge ordered him to enter a treatment program “as deemed appropriate” by his probation officer.

Now some of the neighbors have sued to get the group home closed, seeking more than $1 million from the home residents themselves. The dispute has turned into a legal maelstrom as the neighbors face a countersuit and the civil rights complaint.

Whatever the outcome, Perron says he is leaning toward moving the home. “I want to move,” Perron said, “because I really believe my staff and the residents are in danger.”