FORT MYERS, Fla., June 13 (UPI) -- A Florida county commission has voted unanimously to set up a segregated storm shelter for registered sex offenders.
Lee County commissioners did not designate a site for the shelter, TV station WBBH reported. The most likely spots are in the Criminal Justice Academy or on one floor of the Justice Center in Fort Myers.
Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott proposed the separate shelter in April, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.
"If people are forced to evacuate, they'll have a lot more on their minds than if they have a sex offender mixed among them," Scott told the newspaper. "This will provide protection to not only the people in these shelters but also to the sexual predators themselves."
The sheriff said that as far as he knows no registered sex offenders used public shelters during evacuations last year. He said that if someone did go to a public shelter deputies would have to post the offender's picture.
