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Schools

Bus stop near sex offender is moved

A Gulfport mother finds that persistence doesn't pay but bad publicity does.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published August 3, 2005

GULFPORT - Like most parents, the recent spate of child abductions, assaults and slayings has made Cathryn Dommisse extra vigilant.

As such, when she learned that her 12-year-old son's school bus stop had been changed and put in front of the home of a sexual offender, she jumped into action.

Putting the bus stop there was "like dangling a carrot" in front of the sexual offender, she said.

Dommisse, 34, started by calling a number that Pinellas County school officials had said parents should call if they had concerns or questions.

She called several times a day, she said, and each time was told nothing could be done. The district was required only to keep its bus stops a certain distance from sexual predators, not sexual offenders, she was told.

After receiving the same answer day after day, Dommisse decided to take her case to a television station. A day after Channel 10 told her story, Dommisse got her way. The school district put her son's bus stop back where it had been a year earlier.

Dommisse is pleased that the bus stop in front of the home of sex offender Virgil Lander has been moved, but she worries about countless other bus stops that are feet away from other sex offenders.

"They changed mine, but they're not changing anybody else. They said there are too many sexual offenders. They said that because he is not a sexual predator that they were well within safety guidelines. ... I would like more to be done," she said.

Florida defines sexual predators as sexual offenders who have repeatedly committed sex crimes, used violence in those acts and who prey on children.

Lander, 30, who lives at 5801 26th Ave. S, was convicted of sexually abusing a 3-year-old girl in 1999. The bus stop Dommisse fought against was at 58th Street and 26th Avenue S, in front of the modest home Lander shares with his mother, Nancy.

Speaking at her front door Tuesday, Nancy Lander said she didn't understand why the school district put the bus stop in front of their home.

"It's their stupidity doing that," she said.

Her son, who was not home at the time, has been upset by the outcry "because he's been staying away from kids," she said.

"I can't even have my grandkids on this property," the grandmother of nine said.

She added that she doesn't blame Dommisse for complaining.

"I would do the same thing," she said.

Dommisse learned Monday that the school district had decided to return son Evan Lefevre's bus stop to 58th Street and 25th Avenue S. District spokesman Ron Stone left a message on her voice mail, she said.

During a telephone interview, Stone said the original bus stop had been changed by the district's automated routing system, which assigns new bus routes each year based on student data. The system does not take into account where sexual offenders live, Stone said, but the district adheres to state law by not putting bus stops within 1,000 feet of sexual predators. The law does not apply to sexual offenders. Stone said the transportation department's new technology overlays its own maps with maps produced by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to avoid close proximity to sexual predators.

Dommisse began her efforts to change her son's bus stop last week. She said it was Evan, a student at Azalea Middle School, who pointed out where the new stop was.

"My son said, "Look, it's right outside of Virgil's house.' Everybody in our neighborhood knows where this sex offender, Virgil Lander, lives," she said, adding that Gulfport police had distributed fliers with the names, pictures and addresses of sexual offenders in the city.

Last Tuesday she began calling school district officials about the sexual offender near her son's new bus stop.

"I was told that they were only changing bus stops if they were sexual predators. I called five times a day, in the morning before going to work, during a cigarette break in the morning, during lunch and in the afternoon. I was making calls all last week. The route coordinator refused to take my calls. I also spoke to the transportation police," said the mother of two other sons, 10 and 15.

Stone said the district would consider similar requests case by case. "Every time you move a bus stop, you affect the entire route," he said.

The school district has about 15,000 bus stops. Pinellas County has about 1,000 sex offenders, according to state records.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified August 3, 2005, 00:57:26]