A Bixby neighborhood wants a convicted sex offender to move

A Bixby neighborhood up in arms, they recently learned a twice convicted sex offender bought a house in their subdivision. Many of them don't want him living near their children. <br/><br/>Tuesday

Tuesday, March 22nd 2005, 10:17 am

By: News On 6

A Bixby neighborhood up in arms, they recently learned a twice convicted sex offender bought a house in their subdivision. Many of them don't want him living near their children.

Tuesday night, nearly a hundred angry people met with police officers and city councilors to look for a solution.

News on 6 anchor Lori Fullbright was there.

Some Bixby neighbors want some answers. They want to know if there's anyway to keep a sex offender from living next door. They discussed buying him out, protesting at his home, even getting armed. The man they're talking about is Bassil Abdi. The Bixby Police Department lists Abdi as an aggravated sex offender who was convicted on five counts of lewd molestation in 1992 and received a five year suspended sentence and a conviction in January of 2004 for two counts of sexual assault and given a 10 year sentence.

One lady decided the best way to handle the issue, is educate her five-year-old daughter. Adriane Freeman: "We did take her by the house explained a bad man lived there and had hurt children before and showed her the picture from the website and explained again he was bad man and if he tried to hurt her, she should yell and run and not let this man near you."

One idea was to get their neighborhood pool classified as a park because Oklahoma has a law that says convicted sex offenders can't be within 300 feet of a park. However, that would take a city ordinance, so police told them to form a neighborhood watch. One man, Nathan, passed out flyers with Abdi's criminal history. "I was angry at first and it didn't take long to alert everyone in the community so we could work in numbers and maybe get him out of the neighborhood."

Bixby Police say it's great to see so many people care about an issue, but, doesn't want them to live in fear. Bixby Police Lt Paul Tryon: "You don't want to live in fear. Be aware and be cautious."

The News on 6 left messages at Abdi's two Tulsa restaurants and went to his home, but did not hear from him.

Civil rights experts say criminals who've served their time, including sex offenders, should be allowed to live in peace. Neighbors say since sex offenders have a high rate of repeating their crimes, they'd rather be pro-active than wait until something happens.