According to authorities, the number of sex crimes are rising in the Permian Basin, as three have been reported all in the last week, two of them in Odessa.
“It’s so important to know that the first step is to report it to us immediately, because it is a crime to fail to report it,” said Odessa Police Spokesperson Steve LeSueur.
LeSueur said OPD deals with these types of cases often.
“Whether it’s sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child or endangering a child; we’re investigating those types of incidents on a daily basis,” said LeSueur.
That’s no different than what Harmony Home Children’s Advocacy Center in Odessa sees.
“Sexual abuse is something that we do see and it has been an increase,” Community Resource Director Anthony Vandenberg said. “It’s definitely one of the fastest that we see.”
Vandenberg said it’s a step in the right direction, seeing these crimes in the media more often lately.
“We’ve seen it a lot more in the news, which is kind of a good thing, because it shines more light on the issue at hand,” Vandenberg said. “A lot of people don’t really know about how often that actually happens. The crimes are still happening, it’s just the reporting is lacking.”
LeSueur advises victims to step forward and not protect the suspect by only posting it to social media.
“What we’re seeing now is sometimes people will actually go to the media and post it on social media first, without even reporting it to us,” LeSueur said. “Unfortunately from a law enforcement perspective, it doesn’t really do us a lot of good.”
LeSueur said teachers, nurses, doctors and even day-care employees are required to report child sex abuse crimes.
(Information from YourBasin.com)
