My wife Pat and I generally tune in the 10 p.m. news, weather and sports on one of the television stations. About the only time we don’t, is occasionally when we’re out late or out of town.
Unfortunately, it seems it’s seldom that a week goes by anymore without us hearing of some serious child abuse case or child neglect case occurring in Oklahoma.
It seems, too, we hear and see on the news and in other media of crimes taking place that involve someone or multiple people preying on children.
Tragically enough, many of these result in serious injuries to a child, some even death. These children are absolutely innocent, helpless and defenseless.
It’s difficult to understand what drives those who are inflicting these kinds of injuries and abuse on children. Or just simply neglecting them.
Many of the stories on the late night newscasts are related to crime. We have to put that in to perspective, too, of course.
We most likely are watching and hearing about the worst crimes taking place. We’re probably not even hearing about much of what takes place across Oklahoma and have no way of knowing how bad it might be in other states.
As we watch those late evening newscasts, my wife and I often talk about those abuse cases related to young children. Then we always ask ourselves, “How can they do that to a baby or young child who are so young, have done nothing to hurt or inflict injury upon them”?
Then we look at one another and honestly say to each other, “The thought never even entered our minds of hurting or injuring our daughter or our grandson”!
Since I write a lot of crime stories and follow some of them through the area court systems, I decided to do a little research on these types of crimes in Lincoln County. By no means is this scientific or is it meant to be.
But I looked through the public records for the months of May, June and July this year. Since August just began, I didn’t include it. I was looking only at the felonies, not the misdemeanors filed during those months.
Between May 1 and 31, there were two child neglect charges filed by prosecutors. Two of the 20 people charged that month with felonies were for child neglect.
In the 30 days during June, there was one person charged with child abuse and two people face child endangerment felonies.
From July 1 through July 31, there were 18 persons charged with felonies. Seven of those were charged with crimes against children.
There were five counts of child neglect, eight total charges of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, one for aggravated possession of child pornography and one for obscene material, buying/ possessing/procuring.
It seems unimaginable this is occurring right here in our own area but it is. I think law enforcement and current prosecutors aggressively address these crimes and the public has to provide assistance to them by providing information when they hear these crimes are taking place