Yesterday, Riptide visited Juan Martin, a registered sex offender who lives under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. The compact, bushy-haired thirty year-old lives in state-mandated colony of offenders under the bridge - a story New Times broke in March 2007. Now, he says, Miami Police are threatening to charge them with trespassing.
Back in 2007, New Times writer Isaiah Thompson reported there were about 20 men living in the shanty camp. That number has doubled.
Today, the area under the bridge is
Miami's colony of sex offenders is a lot like a big, stubborn pimple on the nose of the city: Nobody likes it and yet it just keeps growing. So it's no surprise that after nearly two years of policymakers ignoring the problem, it's gotten uglier.
In response, Miami city commissioners passed a good-intentioned, if somewhat toothless resolution yesterday. To sum it up: The city will ask the state to form a task force to study and solve the public-safety-meets-human-rights nightmare. The group
