Toronto Neighborhood Up in Arms Over Sex Offender

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By Reuters

Published: 08/06/2003

Toronto residents reacted with disbelief recently to news a serial sex offender released recently from prison will be placed in the neighborhood where, only weeks earlier, a child was abducted, mutilated and murdered.
Walter Jacobson, 61, convicted of sex-related crimes dating back to the 1960s, moved into a halfway house in the leafy west-end residential neighborhood on July 9.
'The powers that be that let him go were very insensitive and stupid,' said Virginia Novak, who lives in the area. 'The community is still healing, we're still trying to come to grips with what happened, and then this hits us like a bombshell.'
Toronto police held an unusual news conference to denounce Jacobson's arrival in the area and said they will try and get more stringent parole conditions placed on him.
Police Chief Julian Fantino called Jacobson a 'walking time bomb' and expressed disgust at the decision by Corrections Canada to put the man in a neighborhood shattered by the murder of 10-year-old Holly Jones in May.
'To have this happen, I think there is lack of sensitivity, lack of concern, lack of common sense,' Fantino said. 'There just doesn't seem to be any care or concern about where they drop these individuals.'
Jones disappeared on May 12 in broad daylight. Less than 24 hours later, some of her dismembered remains were found in a gym bag and more body parts were discovered at another location.
Her murder horrified the city and sparked calls for a national sex offender registry after police revealed that about 200 people on the province of Ontario's sex offenders' registry were known to either live in, or have visited, the girl's neighborhood.
The software developer charged in Jones' murder is not on the Ontario registry and has no criminal record.
'It seems like we're back to being on pins and needles again,' said Novak, who formed a neighborhood action committee after Jones's murder.
Novak and other activists are trying to create 'Holly's Law,' national legislation that would enable judges to take previous crimes into account when sentencing those convicted of a crime.
Officials at Jacobson's halfway house tried to ease the alarm in the neighborhood, pointing out that the man would be strictly monitored.
'He's grounded to the center until we can assess further any risk to the community,' Shelley Hassard, director of the halfway house, told a Toronto radio station.

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