Fine line between control and harassment
From Brian Todd
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Clovis Claxton felt his neighbors closing in.
He'd been on his state's list of registered sex offenders for years, but recently someone had posted fliers all over his street in Ocala, Florida, bearing the words "child rapist."
People were reported yelling obscenities at his parents.
On at least four occasions, Claxton called sheriff's deputies saying he feared for his life.
"He was very distraught over it, and just didn't know how to handle it, and made comments about ending it all, overdosing, you know, and committing suicide," says Captain Dennis Strow from the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Last Thursday, Claxton's body was discovered inside his home with drugs, alcohol and one of those fliers nearby.
The sheriff's department is treating it as a suicide.
Claxton had never been charged with child rape but did serve time in Washington State for exposing himself to a nine year old.
Marion County Sheriffs' officials tell CNN 38-year-old Claxton was mentally disabled and confined to a wheelchair -- and they had not considered him a threat to the community.
They're also investigating who altered a printout from the state Web site listing sex offenders, and printed the words "child rapist" next to Claxton's name -- fliers that still leave a community divided.
"Fliers like this, I think ... for the some good they may do, I think they could do a lot more damage," says one neighbor.
"It's terrible that he did that. But as far as the flier -- I'm a father and I live here in the neighborhood. And I wouldn't never have no idea that this guy moved into the neighborhood," says another.
It's a neighborhood with a heightened sense of the dangers to local children.
The recent deaths of Sarah Michelle Lunde and Jessica Lunsford, allegedly killed by registered sex offenders in nearby Florida counties, shed light on how difficult it is for law enforcement agencies across the country to track these offenders.
"Communities should not be taking matters into their own hands. It just creates a wave of hysteria and also leads to misinformation getting put out there," says Carolyn Atwell-Davis of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The center says notifying law enforcement is still the best way to deal with local sex offenders, and the laws for registering and tracking them have not gone too far.
Despite the Claxton case, experts say there are very few reports of vigilantism against registered sex offenders.
Sheriff's officials in Marion County, Florida, tell CNN there are 529 registered sex offenders in their county. They say they're now paying each of them a monthly visit, and will start to pay more attention to both their complaints and their neighbors' complaints.
