Prosecutor praises 14-year-old for taking action when she saw a little girl being abused
By Aimee Green, The Oregonian
November 12, 2009, 9:36PM
Faith Cathcart/The Oregonian Nichelle McKinney, 14, was worried about the little girl she saw sitting on a man’s lap in the Avalon Theatre because she thought the man was touching her inappropriately. Despite fearing that adults might not believe her, she insisted on telling someone. That led to the eventual arrest and conviction of the man. The police and the prosecutor praised McKinney for saving the little girl from an abusive father. Fourteen-year-old Nichelle McKinney couldn't believe her eyes.
She and a friend had just stepped into the darkened Avalon Theatre in Southeast Portland on Feb. 14 when she saw a man in the back row touching a 6-year-old girl who was on his lap.
"I thought I was imagining things," said McKinney. "That's why I sat so close to him."
McKinney and her friend, Shai'Onna Jackson-Justice, 14, took a seat in the row in front of the man, and McKinney kept turning back to see what was happening -- even though Jackson-Justice told her to stop looking. She said it was none of their business.
But McKinney knew something was wrong. The man had the girl's shirt pulled up and was rubbing her chest. Jackson-Justice texted her grandma. When they didn't hear back, McKinney tapped the shoulder of a woman sitting in front of her.
Faith Cathcart/The OregonianChristine Bemrose and her daughter, Erin Nolan, 12, were watching “The Tale of Despereaux,” the adventures of a cartoon mouse, Feb. 14 in the Avalon Theatre when a girl behind them told her she saw a man molesting a young girl.That set into motion a call to 9-1-1, an arrest, an investigation and -- this week -- a 15-year prison sentence for the man, a child molester who police say could have gone undetected for years if not for McKinney's persistence. Investigators also credit Christine Bemrose, the 34-year-old woman who happened to be sitting in front of McKinney, and Jackson-Justice for helping catch a predator.
"This is a case where the public really stood up for what is right," said Nathan Vasquez, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case.
Police who responded to the scene learned the man was the little girl's biological father. He had been molesting her behind closed doors, on the occasional weekends he had custody.
Once the father was arrested, the girl was whisked into protective custody. She told investigators that her dad sexually touched her while giving her baths and that it hurt, according to court documents. A physical examination confirmed the abuse.
The dad initially denied he had done anything out of line. A few days after the girl was interviewed, Portland police detectives questioned him again, and he confessed.
The Oregonian is not naming the man because his daughter shares his last name. The newspaper generally does not identify sexual assault victims.
The man, 30, pleaded no contest in Multnomah County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual abuse and attempted unlawful sexual penetration and was sentenced Tuesday.
A "haunting look"
Seconds after McKinney tapped Bemrose's shoulder, Bemrose turned around to confront the man.
"I said, 'Dude, you're really creeping me out!'" said Bemrose, who was at the theater with her daughter, then 11.
The man didn't reply. Bemrose thought that was odd, so she repeated herself. Still no response.
Bemrose, who has a lot of experience with children as a speech pathologist for Portland Public Schools, walked back a few rows and watched the man from the aisle. He wasn't rubbing the girl's nipples any longer, as McKinney told her, but he was trying to coax her onto his lap. The girl was hitting his arm, in a halfhearted effort to get him to stop.
"She just gave me this very haunting look," Bemrose said. "She was a child that was not having a good time, a child that was not in a good place."
Bemrose found the manager, who called 9-1-1. McKinney heard the man tell the girl that if she told anyone what happened, he'd call her a liar.
Bemrose said she doesn't believe the man knew police were on the way. She thinks he only knew he was being watched, and so he was trying to pretend nothing was wrong. The man waited in line to get change to play games in the Wunderland arcade adjoining the theater at Southeast 35th Avenue and Belmont Street. It was Saturday, and the place was teeming with children.
As they waited for police, the manager, Bemrose, McKinney, Jackson-Justice and Jackson-Justice's aunt watched the man. If he had left, Bemrose said, she was prepared to get a license plate.
Bemrose and McKinney heard the man scold the girl, telling her that he'd spent a lot of money and she'd ruined his Valentine's Day.
Confronted by Portland Detectives John Russell and William Crockett, the man claimed his daughter had a stomachache and was sitting on his lap for comfort.
Police didn't buy the story. A video camera trained on the audience showed the man inappropriately touching his daughter.
Public abuse rare
Russell said the Multnomah County Child Abuse Team received 1,090 reports of child abuse in the past year. He said abuse almost always happens in private, not in a public place such as a movie theater with a group of strangers willing to leap into action.
The man, who had no criminal history, has two other children by a different mother. Investigators don't believe he abused his other children.
The man told authorities that he is being treated for bipolar and attention-deficit disorders. He was unemployed at the time of his arrest. He said he has an 11th-grade education.
The man will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
McKinney, the 14-year-old who reported the man, said it was hard to do.
"I kind of thought people weren't going to believe me," said McKinney, now a freshman at Benson Polytechnic High School. But she had to try.
"I was just thinking of that little girl," she said.
Bemrose said McKinney and Jackson-Justice, a freshman at De LaSalle North Catholic High School, did what was right.
"The thing that made me the most proud was that these two girls were really persistent in trying to get somebody's attention," Bemrose said.
"Luckily," she added with a laugh, "they ran into someone who was sort of bossy and pushy and really willing to get involved."
-- Aimee Green
