News and Information

Sex offender tracking system leads to arrest
By:Isabel Mascareñas, Tampa Bay's 10, CBS

September 26, 2005 – New Port Richey, Florida - Visit any public school and you'll first have to sign in and receive a visitor's pass to wear. The system tracks who comes and goes but that's about it.

There's a scanning system showing up in many bay area schools, it searches the databases in 42 states for sex offenders and predators. The tracking system by Raptor Technologies at Seven Springs Elementary alerted school officials to a sex offender from Illinois. 26 year old David Rutherford was visiting the school with his girlfriend who needed to drop off her son's lunchbox. Principal Vicki Garner says when Rutherford was asked for his driver's license at the main office his name popped up as a sexual offender.

Vicki Garner, Principal Seven Springs Elementary "When it actually caught someone it went beyond what our hopes were it kept someone who may of been a danger off campus."

Garner firs learned of the scanning system on Tampa Bay's Ten. In February Ten News featured Sarasota Middle School, the first school in the state to pilot the program. She quickly looked into the program and the school's student advisory council agreed to invest in it.

Garner"For me the safety it provides is inexpensive."

The system costs about one-thousand dollars to set up and about 400 dollars to maintain annually.

Mark Babiarz's daughter is a kindergartner at the school and his wife is a teacher, to him the system is worth every penny.

Mark Babiarz, Parent"It's worth it I know it deters people from coming in who are sex offender. This is going to be a safe zone for my daughter, not have to worry as much."

There are 70 schools in the state using the visitor identification system by Raptor Technologies. Besides the 4 schools in Pasco there are 7 school sin Pinellas, 3 in Sarasota and it's in all Hernando Schools.

Florida is one of 12 states in the country using the program.