Garden Grove fears parolee surge

A surge in the number of paroled child molesters staying at two Garden Grove hotels prompted city police to issue a public warning Thursday to nearby residents, businesses and schools.

Patrol officers and cadets began blanketing the area around the hotels with fliers listing the names and photos of 16 high-risk sex offenders -- all convicted child molesters -- who are residing at the Hospitality Inn or the Garden Grove Inn.

At a news conference, Capt. Mike Handfield accused the state Department of Corrections of “dumping” parolees in Garden Grove.

Under California law, high-level sex offenders must be returned to their home counties but cannot live within half a mile of any school or park.

In Orange County, only a handful of locations meet those restrictions, police said. One is the spot on Garden Grove Boulevard near Beach Boulevard occupied by the two Garden Grove hotels. The city had an informal agreement with parole officials to limit the number of high-risk sex offenders at the hotels to 10, Handfield said.

But on Wednesday, five or six new parolees checked in and registered with police, he said.

Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said he wasn’t aware of any agreement to limit the number of parolees in Garden Grove.

“We do everything we can to cooperate with local law enforcement,” Sessa said. “But it’s a difficult balancing act to find legally appropriate housing.”

Sessa said it’s better for public safety to have sex offenders concentrated in one spot because they’re easier to supervise.

“The normal reaction from local police departments is that they welcome it as much as we do,” Sessa said.

But Garden Grove police called the abundance of parolees, some of whom are tracked with GPS devices, a threat to public safety.

“I sympathize with their dilemma, but we can’t have this many in one area,” Handfield said. “They [state officials] may make the point that it’s safer, but they wouldn’t say that if they lived next door to the hotels.”

So police went door to door with fliers Thursday to retail establishments, restaurants and homes within a quarter-mile of the hotels. Fliers were also sent to Garden Grove and Westminster school district officials.

The fliers didn’t include the names or photos of five other registered sex offenders who are also staying at the hotels. Those offenders aren’t on parole and are deemed low-risk, Handfield said.

*

roy.rivenburg@latimes.com