Monrovia Neighborhood Protests Drive Sex Offender Out of Home

The message was as simple as the words that 11-year-old Rita Portillo shouted through her bullhorn Monday: “Child molester: We don’t want you here.”

And so, after enduring days of angry protests designed to make him feel unwelcome, Aramis Dominguez Linares apparently moved out of the house in Monrovia where he had hoped to live--but where word of his past caused a neighborhood to rise up against him.

Linares, who was twice convicted of child molestation in Nevada, had moved into his sister’s home, down the street from an elementary school, across from a park and next door to a residential day-care center.

But in the face of the overwhelming community reaction, Monrovia Police Capt. Terry Dochnahl said, Linares moved out sometime Monday.

His family, Dochnahl said, “told him to leave and he was not welcome here. We believe he is gone at this time.”

Dochnahl said Linares had moved to another city in Los Angeles County, but police have not yet confirmed the new location.

On Monday night, about 125 protesters gathered in front of the home, chanting and waving signs, as they had been doing for several days.

The protests in the 500 block of West Olive Avenue exemplified the growing conflict between the free-speech rights of residents to protest against sex offenders moving into their neighborhoods and the protection of convicts who have completed their sentences and, according to some, earned the right to be left alone.

In the park earlier Monday, a dozen mothers, fathers and children carried signs warning, “Don’t Play Here, Child Molester.” The fence surrounding the park’s jungle gym bore a blue ribbon with the words “Child Molester Leave Now.”

“This is a family neighborhood. We’re very frightened. We’re kind of on edge,” said protester Michael Miller, 48.

Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said high-profile protests can spark vigilantism or cause offenders to flee. “Eventually offenders leave a community and go somewhere where they don’t register as a sex offender,” she said. “Sex offenders have to live somewhere.”

She added, “I’ve never heard of a case where so many details about a offender have been released.”

The protests began last week after Monrovia police passed out fliers and notified the local news media about Linares, listing his crimes, description and address.

Neighbors began holding candlelight vigils. And last weekend, as many as 200 protesters marched in front of Linares’ home. Monrovia police cars passed the home every five or 10 minutes.

Linares, 49, did not answer his door early Monday.

Saturday, according to the Pasadena Star-News, he told reporters: “I have had enough therapy and understand that I need to stay away from them [children]. I don’t want to be a monster.”

Monrovia Police Chief Joseph Santoro said that under California law his agency is empowered to alert residents about convicted sex offenders. “I’m doing everything in my power to protect the children of this town,” Santoro said. “It’s like having a time bomb that is going to go off. . . . If he moves to another community, we’ll help them.”

Mike Van Winkle, a California Department of Justice spokesman, said, “If an agency wants to reveal an offender’s address and license plates, they can do it.”

Santoro said that, under the conditions of their parole, most sex offenders cannot live next to a day-care facility or near a park or school. But Linares completed his sentence and is not on parole.

“We need to change the law to prevent all sex offenders from living by a day care, park or school,” Santoro said. He said Monrovia’s mayor has asked state lawmakers to add restrictions to Megan’s Law, which authorizes the release to the public of certain information on the whereabouts of sex offenders.

The Cuban-born Linares was released from a Nevada prison Aug. 10. As required by law, he registered with Monrovia police when he moved into the back unit of a single-story house owned by his sister and brother-in law, officials said.

Santoro said the Immigration and Naturalization Service had held Linares for three years beyond his sentence until a federal judge ordered his release. The INS had been unable to deport Linares to Cuba as a criminal alien because there is no agreement with that government to repatriate felons, he said. INS spokeswoman Sharon Gavan would not comment on the case.

Monrovia Police Det. John Abbott last week asked the state Department of Justice to declare Linares a high-risk sex offender.

In 1979, Abbott said, Linares kidnapped a girl younger than 14 from her Nevada frontyard and took her to a construction site where he molested her. Abbott said that Linares molested another girl at his Nevada home after he replied to an advertisement she placed seeking work as a baby-sitter.

Abbott said Linares served 15 years for those crimes, and has been convicted of other unspecified crimes in federal, California and Nevada courts.

“Once he was designated a high-risk sex offender, that allowed us to make communitywide notification and contact the media,” Abbott said.

Christine Ray, 45, summed up community reaction to that notification: “Not here. Not on a street with a school, a park and day care.”