Parents who sexually abuse their children

Tuesday morning Metro announced the arrest of a couple on 30 counts of incestuous sexual assault. I am chosing not to identify the parents at all, because that might identify the victims. (Although you can find their names and mug shots on at least one local website as I write this; and you can be sure it will be on KVBC.com after it airs on one of our newscasts.)

Metro officers have told me many times that 72-80% of all sexual assaults are "acquaintance related." That means the victim knows, and often trusts, the pepetrator. Most often they are direct relations, like a brother and sister; in this case, it appears a mother and a step-father perpetrated various acts on multiple children. Metro's news release reads "...one of the couples children revealed they had been the victim of various forms of incestuous sexual assault for approximately the past 12 years."

There are cases where only one parent is accused. Sometimes the other parent is permissive; sometimes the other parent has no idea abuse is happening. And there are uncles, aunts, coaches, teachers, neighbors, and any other number of trusted adults who use their position of trust to abuse children. It becomes incumbent on parents to teach children that their bodies are their own. Parents need to teach children that they need to feel safe and comfortable. That it is okay to say no to an adult when they make a child feel uncomfortable. And that may be a difficult lesson to teach, since it is hard enough to get some children to listen to adults at all.

Metro's Crimes Against Youth & Family bureau has some resources and advice for parents.

Manhunt Monday - Dazaeth Rojasperalta

This week's "Manhunt Monday" suspect is a man on the run, accused of attacking his girlfriend and daughter.

Dazaeth Rojasperalta is a hispanic male adult, 21 years of age, standing 5'9" tall and weighing approximately 160 lbs with brown hair and brown eyes. He also uses the separate last names of Rojas and Peralta. His last known address was in the 4000 Block of Silver Dollar in Las Vegas.
On December 6 , 2009 Rojasperalta was arguing with his girlfriend in front of her 2 year old daughter. When the infant became fearful and started crying, Rojasperalta violently attacked the child, causing injuries which required emergency medical transportation to an area hospital for
treatment. When the child’s mother attempted to intervene, Rojasperalta attacked and injured her as well.
Rojasperalta, who normally works as a laborer, then fled the scene in an early 90's white Nissan Pathfinder, which he may still be driving. Prior to this event, Rojasperalta’s only known criminal history was traffic related offenses.
Because of his violent criminal actions on December 6th, 2009, Dazaeth Rojasperalta is currently wanted on an outstanding warrant for Felony Child Abuse/Child Endangerment.
If you has any information as to the whereabouts of Dazaeth Rojasperalta you are encouraged to contact the L.V.M.P.D. Fugitive Detail at 702-385-3578 or Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555.

There's a new "kid" in town.

A new week brings a slew of new duties. Up until now, my job at Channel 3 was to produce the Crimetracker 3 reports with Sophia Choi. As of today, add Kids First with Kendall Tenney to my agenda.
It is a little difficult making the transition. I had set up a routine with my Crimetracker efforts, and now I need to make big adjustments to accomodate my new responsibilities. Today I prepared our Manhunt Monday report for Crimetracker 3, as I made sure editing was going well for our Make a Wish Monday report on Diana, who wished for the "Rock Star treatment." We previewed it a bit last Wednesday, and on this blog. You can catch the full report during First News 3 at 4.
Photographer Preston will likely give up some of his lunch to finish editing so we can head over to a nearby school for a shoot for an upcoming "What's Right with Kids" story, to air on Friday.

Quicker Help for people who may not even know they are at risk

Metro's Crimes Against Youth and Family Bureau is trying to become more proactive in all of its areas. One statistic Captain Vincent Cannito would like to see come down is the 44 homicides in 2008 identified as "intimate-partner related." Many are the result of Domestic Violence.

In an attempt to identify which victims of domestic violence are most likely to become future homicide victims, Cannito and his team looked at research out of Maryland, based on 25 years of crime data. They boiled it down to eleven questions.

1. Has your partner (or whoever the aggressor is) ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a weapon?
2. Has he or she ever threatened to kill you or your children?
3. Do you think he/she might try to kill you?
4. Does he/she have a gun or can he/she get one easily?
5. Has he/she ever tried to strangle you?
6. Is he/she violently or constantly jealous or does he/she control most or all of your daily activities?
7. Have you left him/her or separated after living together or being married?
8. Is he/she unemployed?
9. Has he/she ever tried to kill himself/herself?
10. Do you have a child that he/she knows is not his/hers?
11. Does he/she follow or spy on you or leave threatening messages?

This list of questions will be given to the patrol officers, who are usually the first to respond to a domestic violence call to police. If the person answers yes to any three questions, the officer will offer to make a phone call and put the victim in direct contact with one of several service agencies in the area. This can all happen before a detective even starts investigating. Since the suspect often runs before police arrive, placing the phone call at this point can get the victim needed help before the suspect returns and potentially commits more violence.

Ditto

Our viewers did it again.

As Metro officers say, one crime at a time, one suspect at a time.

First Arrest

This is a proud day for the Crimetracker 3 team. Since we started this feature back in March 2008, we've featured dozens of suspects for some very serious crimes. We've even heard about some of them landing behind bars. Metro would tell us that none of the arrests were directly attributed to "Manhunt Monday," but they told us that some of the criminals had seen the reports, and the pressure lead to mistakes that put them in custody.
All that changed last week. A tip from a viewer led Metro detectives to an arrest. We finally have it, proof that "Manhunt Monday" works.

Helping the Community

I loved "All the Presidents Men." I got into journalism out of a desire to help people while telling stories. As a former boss once said "We're here to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable."

I've been reminded of our power to help our viewers twice this month. The first instance will be highlighted in tonight's "Manhunt Monday" report at 5pm and 10pm. The other came in an email to Sophia. A viewer detailed her experience as a victim of Cyber-stalking, and then asked for help. Sophia and I responded with the same advice we heard from the experts we've interviewed: call the police and they can help. I won't reveal the details of her story, and I don't even know where she lives, other than somewhere in the 702 area code. But I plan on taking her email to police and some social service agencies to see if they can offer any more advice.

On days when I wonder what I'm doing here, I'll be able to think about these two little victories.