Sexual Predator Population Explosion In Falls This Year
by Mike Hudson
The number of registered sex offenders living in Niagara Falls has taken a sharp spike in 2016, shooting up from 164 in December 2015 to 190 this week.
It’s entirely possible that perverts represent the fastest growing segment of the city’s population.
In Niagara Falls, the odds you’re standing next to a molester or rapist at the grocery store are just 1 in 263. In Niagara County as a whole, there is one offender for every 666 people and statewide the average is one for every 833 people.
If anyone should get credit for the city’s pervert population explosion it is Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, who, during his first term in office, said famously that sexual predators “have to live somewhere,” as he defended a dilapidated Niagara Street rooming house full of sex offenders from a crowd of angry parents and school district personnel at the nearby Niagara Street School.
When Dyster took office, there were just 70 registered sex offenders in the city, and in all likelihood that number will be tripled by the end of his current term, even as the general population of the city as a whole has declined by thousands.
And for every old familiar face there are the new arrivals, like 250-pound Al Williams, 44, of 491 81st St. Williams was convicted in 2007 of attempted sexual abuse and sexual contact with a child under the age of 11.
Or Albert Smith, 32, of 816 Lincoln Place, Apt. 1A. Like Williams, Smith likes children, having been convicted in 2003 of having sexual contact with and sexually abusing a girl under the age of 14.
Dyster is always talking about the revitalization of Falls Street and Anthony King, 46, of 2202 Falls Street, Apt. 2 wants to be a part of it. Back in 1992 he was convicted of both forcible rape and sexual abuse but, like the mayor said, he’s got to live somewhere.
David C. Gossard, 70, of 1424 99th St., heard such good things about Dyster’s Niagara Falls that he traveled from out of state to live here following a felony sex offense conviction and Duane T. Biro, 47, of 7645 Fourth Ave. is another recent add.
There are currently no women on the list of registered sex offenders in Niagara Falls. So, by eliminating that half of the population from the comparison rolls, your likelihood of rubbing elbows with a convicted sex offender shoots up to an astonishing 1 in 131 men. That would constitute a small crowd at a local night club or a portion of the lunchtime rush at McDonald’s.
Since no one will hire them and their families often don’t want to have anything to do with them, registered sex offenders are completely dependent upon the various social services agencies that serve the Niagara Falls community for food, clothing, shelter, medical care and psychological counseling.
They represent the top of the pyramid in an economy that is becoming increasingly based on the care and feeding of those who cannot or will not care for and feed themselves.
