Cloquet city councilors and Mayor Bruce Ahlgren unanimously passed a city ordinance earlier this week that limits where Level 3 sex offenders — the category of predatory offenders determined at highest risk of reoffending by the state and therefore the most dangerous — can reside.
Cloquet city councilors and Mayor Bruce Ahlgren unanimously passed a city ordinance earlier this week that limits where Level 3 sex offenders — the category of predatory offenders determined at highest risk of reoffending by the state and therefore the most dangerous — can reside.
The ordinance prohibits Level 3 sex offenders from residing on a temporary or permanent basis within 1,000 feet of the following:
School
Licensed child care centerCurrently, there are no Level 3 sex offenders living in Cloquet — a total of two are registered in Carlton County — since the arrest of Joseph John Couture, a registered Level 3 offender who pleaded guilty last July to murdering Trina Langenbrunner in 2000.
Public park or playground
The permanent or temporary residence of any other designated predatory offender
Under the terms of the new residency restrictions, Couture would not have been allowed to reside at the home he occupied on the 300 block of Second Street in Cloquet prior to his arrest for Langenbrunner’s murder because the home was close to both a public park and the Cloquet Middle School.
The code change was not prompted by Couture’s case, however. Rather, it was a call to the police department that led to the change.
Cloquet Deputy Police Chief Terry Hill said that a person with Second Chance Ministries in Duluth had called and stated that he was interested in operating or owning a home within Cloquet that could house predatory offenders who were released from prison, to reintegrate them into society. The caller wanted to know if Cloquet had any ordinances that would prevent this type of home. It did not, but it does now.
Hill said the new law was a collaborative effort between the police department, city attorney’s office, planning and zoning and city administration.
“Our concern was that they could locate a home — that wasn’t regulated — where multiple predatory offenders could live together,” Hill said. “And he talked about bringing in offenders not only from Minnesota, but also from out of state.”
