A report from 2002 is raising questions about whether the abuse may have gone on for years and involved multiple children. Police say they investigated Angelique Mendell back then but found nothing.
"It was investigated it was looked into thoroughly and there's a lot of outcomes in cases like this sometimes they're prosecuted, sometimes they're not," said Oklahoma City Police spokesperson Paco Balderrama.
With no charges or arrests, police redacted almost all of the old report. But OKCPD say it includes an anonymous complaint about child sex abuse. And the current affidavit from last week, cites the old report, saying people at the home were observed watching bestiality porn videos in 2002.
Police agree that's a big deal.
"Very serious and very alarming," Balderrama said, "as a father that concerns me."
But he says they couldn't do anything back in 2002.
"It was looked into, it was determined that there was not enough physical evidence to determine a crime was committed. Based on the totality of the circumstances including doctors statements, it was determined there was not enough there to assume that there was some type of abuse of a child."
In fact, officers did not even visit the home in question, interviewing everyone involved elsewhere.
"At that point it was felt that a child was not in danger," Balderrama said.
DHS tells Fox 25 staff took Mendell's three children into custody after her arrest. They are reportedly safe.
Police say they say they get a lot of complaints, and if there's no evidence to move forward with a case, they don't want to release the information to possibly smear someone's name unfairly. That is the reason they gave for almost completely redacting the old report.
Balderrama says while they didn't have enough information in 2002 for a case against Mendell, the fact that there was a complaint back then could help the current case against her now.
(Fox25 - Feb 11, 2015)
No comments:
Post a Comment