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Homeless Sex Offenders Lose Court Fight To Keep Hialeah Tent Camp. Where To Next?

Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald
The scene from a tent encampment of registered sex offenders outside of Hialeah in August 2017. Nine moths later, it remains. But Miami-Dade says it is ready to dismantle the village, and a judge has sided with the county.

A Miami-Dade judge on Thursday cleared the way for the county to dismantle a tent village of homeless sex offenders outside Hialeah, and a lawyer for some of the residents said the ruling leaves them no choice but to live on a roadside or street somewhere else.

"They'll most likely be relocating to another street corner," Legal Services lawyer Jeffrey Hearne said after the hearing before Judge Pedro Echarte Jr. in Circuit Court. "New encampments will pop up. And this cycle will continue."

Kendall residents have already been picketing over another potential offender camp where Krome Avenue meets Kendall Drive at the western edge of the county. Miami-Dade's rules bar sex offenders from living with 2,500 feet of a school, a protection that's far stricter than the 1,000-foot radius required by Florida law. Hearne said that the Krome camp has already been subject to a drive-by splattering from a paint gun.

Read more from our news partner, The Miami Herald.

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