3 Sex Offenders In Mendota Heights: 2020 Safety Map

MENDOTA HEIGHTS, MN — Fall is a good time to take an inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. Mendota Heights has two registered sex offenders living in the city, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Kirk Alan Fugelseth

Per DOC: "Offender has a history of sexual contact with minor males and females (age 7-15). Contact included sexual touching and penetration. Offender was known to victims. Offender also has a history of possession of child pornography."

Eric James Dokken

Per DOC: "Offender has a history of sexual conduct and contact with minor male victims (age 6-13). Conduct has included showing victims pornography and indecent exposure. Contact has included sexual touching and penetration. Force was used to gain compliance. Offender was known to victims."

Isaiah Charles Swedeen

Per DOC: "At age 10, Isaiah Swedeen engaged in sexual contact with two known female children over an extended period of time. Contact included sexual touching and penetration. Physical force and threats were used to gain compliance."

Here is where sex offenders are registered as living across Dakota County. Pins on the map represent the areas where offenders convicted of sex crimes live. Roll your cursor over the pins, and you will see more information pop up.

Minnesota requires people convicted of certain offenses, including the ones listed below, to register for the state's public database:

• Criminal Sexual Conduct and Felony Level Indecent Exposure
• Kidnapping and False Imprisonment
• Soliciting a minor to engage in prostitution or sexual conduct
• Using a minor in a sexual performance
• Possession of pictorial representations of minors

See the full list of offenses included in the list here.
Minnesota's offender database can be accessed here.

Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries play a limited role in preventing child sexual abuse and stress that most perpetrators are known to the child.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the National Sex Offender Public Website, estimates that only about 10 percent of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child.

The Justice Department estimates 60 percent of perpetrators are known to the child but are not family members but rather family friends, babysitters, child care providers and others, and 30 percent of child victims are abused by family members. Nearly a quarter of the abusers are under the age of 18, the department estimates.

The Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers, a nonprofit organization for clinicians, researchers, educators, law enforcement and court officials involved in sexual abuse cases, cautions that children do not face a heightened risk during the Halloween season: "There is no change in the rate of sexual crimes by non-family members during Halloween. That was true both before and after communities enacted laws to restrict the activities of registrants during Halloween. The crimes that do increase around Halloween are vandalism and property destruction, as well as theft, assault, and burglary."

Related

• NARSOL Objects To Local Mapping Of Registered Sex Offenders
• Why Patch Publishes Sex Offender Registry Maps