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Parents' plea for tighter sex offender legislation

"Rage, you know sadness, anger, hate."

AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- “Rage, you know sadness, anger, hate.”

Those are the words one parent is using after she says she saw photos of her 10 year-old daughter posted online, without their consent.

Police, parents feel helpless as sex offender secretly photographs children

Augusta Police say they are aware of a registered sex offender taking pictures of young girls and posting them on social media, but no laws have been broken. The reason, police say, is because he’s protected by the constitution by taking the pictures in public places, even if it is of a child or young adult by a registered sex offender.

Many parents who say they are outraged are taking matters into their own hands, writing to state lawmakers.

NEWS CENTER Maine spoke to one concerned parent, and a lawmaker who is considering taking legislative action.

“Thousands of pictures of people. Younger girls, older girls, it wasn't all minors but a lot of it was minors.”

Jessica Sproul of Waldoboro had heard of these photos being posted and created a Flickr account to see with her own eyes. She says she started crying when she saw her 10 year-old daughter included in those photos, appeared to be taken during a recent trip to Barnes and Noble.

“We had a sad conversation last night at bedtime. She just was feeling bad about things.”

One business, Hannaford, has since banned the person, who admits to taking photos of young girls, from entering their Augusta store.

Sproul is not the only parent concerned.

State representative Matt Pouliot works for District 86, which includes areas north and west of Augusta. He says he’s heard from many parents over the last 24 hours.

“I don’t have children but if I did I would be shocked, and many of these parents are shocked," says Rep. Pouliot. "And rightfully so.”

He says there are many layers to this issue.

“One of the issues that you run into is people’s first amendment rights….One thing that we need to look at is where would we draw the line on who can and can’t do this. If I got to a baseball game at Fenway Park and I want to snap a photograph it includes the crowd of people it also has minors in that photograph you know would that be illegal? For somebody that’s on the sex offender registry maybe it would be. Someone who wasn’t maybe it wouldn’t be. Those are the types of things that we would need to start looking at.”

He says he and his colleagues have started a conversation.

“We’re starting to look at what we could do in terms of crafting legislation. But the bottom line is, it’s not something that can be addressed quickly.”

Meanwhile, NEWS CENTER Maine has learned students at Snowpond Arts Academy in Sydney notified school officials of pictures taken of their peers near bus stops, and the school has re-drawn the school bus route. The superintendent says she sent out a notification to parents about the route changes and reason for it, Thursday.

NEWS CENTER Maine spoke to the man who admits to taking photos of young girls without their consent. He says this is a misunderstanding and he has taken the pictures down.

Related video- Cumberland County D.A.'s answers questions related to this.

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