Letter to the Editor: Powerless in Peekskill

What defines a vibrant, resolute community? In my view,  children who are empowered to achieve success top the list, followed by: pride in well-kept homes and gardens, and homeowners who value keeping our streets safe in order to maintain the best quality of life possible for all -- despite our political and/or religious differences. I found such a neighborhood in Peekskill, in a development overlooking the historic Hat Factory. 

But on August 9, this idealism clashed with an announcement from the  Peekskill Police Department that which is the highest risk, had moved onto Buena Vista Avenue. 

My first reaction,  “How could a sex offender move into a neighborhood I’ve grown to love?

“Twice in a lifetime...”

As evening progressed, a sense of powerlessness displaced my usual sense of optimism. Our judicial system had, yet again,  decided that a sex offender may live freely nearby, indifferent to how I define a neighborhood. Furthermore, while therapists  equipped me with the tools to cope with stress, build trust again, and believe in oneself and community after childhood rape, living within ear shot of a sex offender was never a part of that process.

Naturally, I know better. “There are boys in this neighbor, riding their bikes and playing ball on the street in front of his house. Is he filming them through the window blinds? Will he attempt to befriend any of them?”

Knowledge should empower. State sex offender registries were not available in 1978 when I was a boy and set off to deliver Christmas gifts to the neighbors in suburban Los Angeles. The man wasn’t a stranger so that was why I had vowed to keep the rape secret; it was my younger sibling who disclosed, four months later, that she had been serially molested by him  for three years and I immediately disclosed the events to  my parents.

In preparing for our trial in September 1979, we discovered that the pedophile had been arrested for molesting more than a dozen children from 1973 to 1975 in an adjacent town. However, that neighborhood negotiated a deal -- if he relocated they would drop the charges. Then he moved into a new home abutting our backyard. The net of the trial: Previous disclosures were inadmissible; the judge dismissed my charge of sexual assault on the grounds that boys cannot be molested against their will;  the pedophile pleaded guilty to nine counts of penetration against my 11-year-old sister for which he was sentenced to nine days --already served-- and he was required to register as a sex offender. 

From that point until his death in July 1994, he remained a neighbor.  We rarely used our outdoor space since it overlooked his back yard where he  spent the afternoon and evening hours drinking, usually undressed. Homeowners next door to him were unable to sell as California law required the disclosure of neighborhood sex offenders. 

At the time of his death at age 74, my own investigation --as part of a lengthy recovery and self-empowerment process--  unveiled that he had molested more than 70 children over a span of four decades. The earliest charge was filed by his ex-wife for molesting their daughter in the early-1960s,  which ended his career as a Los Angeles police officer. To my knowledge, he continued to molest children at least  until 1992, with that last known victim identified as his next door neighbor’s  10-year-old daughter. 

There is no evidence to suggest that sex offenders target a specific number of victims, but we know enough to identify patterns such as “grooming.” While these online registries are society’s reactive solution, a surrogate for being proactive in my view, I believe it  does at least reduce the number of potential victims in our communities today, unlike 40 years ago when there were  no resources. 

Nonetheless,  knowing that a sex offender lives only steps away is a grievous reminder of a most powerless period from childhood. Such was that time in life that  I and other male and female survivors of sexual assault who pursued recovery were relieved to move past, which enabled us to resume healthy lives and secure the neighborhoods we love for the sake of everyone’s children. 

But this provocation to Buena Vista Avenue, at least from my personal point of view, leads me to question whose quality of life matters more today, for the privilege and power to decide has never been mine.