DENVER - They live in your community, near your homes and sometimes around your children. By law, all sex offenders have to register and tell local authorities where they live. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, a growing number don't.
The CBI tells 9NEWS that as of Jan. 1 there are 14,831 registered sex offenders in Colorado. That is up by 600 from last year when 14,194 were registered in the state.
As of Thursday, 818 warrants are out for their arrest because they failed to register.
The CBI goes after them a couple of times a year, trying to make them in compliance with the law.
9NEWS Crime and Justice Reporter Anastasiya Bolton was part of the only TV crew allowed on Thursday's round-up.
The operation was dubbed J-Bird, a nickname of Limon Police Officer Jay Sheridan, who died in March 2011 while trying to arrest a sex offender.
During the round-up, agents with the CBI were looking for 25 sex offenders who've failed to register.
"The ones we classified today in addition to having victims, they have the more serious sex offender crimes and some of them also have additional warrants," Steve Johnson, assistant director with the CBI, said.
The 9NEWS crew rode with three agents for six hours, but we didn't capture anyone getting arrested.
We did witness how challenging it was for the agents to find the wanted people.
We made a dozen different stops while agents talked to neighbors and friends, trying to track down the fugitives.
They are fugitives like Adrian Brown. He was convicted of sex assault on a child. The 30-year-old was wanted on a $10,000 bond.
9NEWS checked Brown's criminal record and found he has repeatedly failed to register.
Agents looking for him found a campsite near a trailer park where Brown was living. He wasn't there.
By the end of the day, agents arrested three sex offenders for failing to register.
"Obviously, we want them to register so that the community is safer," agent Tim Harrelson said.
Agents say homelessness is common among sex offenders, which makes them more difficult to track and enforce registration.
"We do have an obligation to try to keep people in compliance," agent Tim Martinez said. "When they do not register, they fail, or they're homeless, it is our responsibility to find out where they 're at."
If you want to report a sex offender, call 303-239-5732.
You can visit the Colorado Sex Offender Public database at www.sor.state.co.us.
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