Las Vegas police partner with smartphone app to show sex offenders in neighborhoods ahead of Halloween

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) has partnered with an app that show residents where sex offenders live in their neighborhoods ahead of Halloween.

The free app called Offender Watch says on its website that it allows parents to “track your children, map offenders nearby, get alerts if your child is contacted or lingers near an offender’s residence, safety tips, and more.”

LVMPD partnered with the app so users can “view the locations of registered sex offenders’ home addresses within” the department’s jurisdiction.

“Simply download the Offender Watch app, available in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, and register your information,” LVMPD said in a Friday tweet. “This can be a great tool for parents to identify houses that they may want to avoid while trick-or-treating.”

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Sgt. Jeremy Hendricks said in a video LVMPD shared on its Twitter page that police get “a lot of calls” around Halloween regarding concerns about sex offenders in their area.

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“This is just an application that’s definitely helpful for the community,” Hendricks said. “[It’s] kind of a public awareness but also gives you some peace of mind because your neighbor could be a sex offender, for all you know.”

The app gives users information such as names; photos; distinguishing characteristics, such as tattoos; sex offender tier levels and past convictions related to sexual crimes, the department said, along with a list of Halloween safety tips for trick-or-treaters and their parents.

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Both parents and children can have the app on their phones, according to Hendricks.

LVMPD Sgt. Miguel Garcia told FOX 5 Las Vegas that the department’s “sex offender application team is going out and knocking on doors of known sex offenders to make sure they’re registered and living at the address they’re registered to,” as well as “partnering with [Offender Watch app] people can watch and go in to track where these sex offenders live.”