Teh One Who Knocks
06-14-2012, 09:11 PM
By Matthew Walberg and Christy Gutowski - The Chicago Tribune
http://i.imgur.com/IWzIi.jpg
A couple from Northlake were charged with child abuse and endangerment after police found two of their children, ages 5 and 7, bound hand and foot and blindfolded in a Walmart parking lot in Lawrence, Kan., authorities say.
Police found the 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl sitting outside the family’s older gray Chevrolet Suburban, blindfolded and bound at the hands and feet, after a woman called 911 Wednesday morning.
“We’re very fortunate that she saw this, because it didn’t occur in the middle of the parking lot,” said Lawrence Police Sgt. Trent McKinley.
The SUV – which apparently had transmission problems, was parked in the far corner of the lot, and the view of the children was further shielded by a earthen berm and a retaining wall.
“I don’t know if the witness was going to the garden center, which is on the west side of the store, or using a little-used exit, but she was in a position to see quite a bit more than the average person coming into the parking lot would have seen.
"And she saw what she believed to be a child that was bound. So when we responded to that, often times in this job usually what you’re given is not what’s occurring. That kind of happened here – what we actually found were two children that were bound outside the vehicle.”
McKinley said three other children -- 12- and 13-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy -- locked themselves inside the SUV, which had clothing, cardboard and other items stacked across the windows and blocking any view inside.
Police did not try to force their way into the SUV, but rather called juvenile officers who helped talk the children into coming out on their own about an hour later, McKinley said.
Their father, Adolfo Gomez, 52, was detained by officers when he returned to the Suburban and was Tasered when he tried to break free and enter the SUV, McKinley said. His wife, Deborah Gomez, 43, was arrested inside the store about 10 minutes later.
The two children who were bound were examined at the scene, and McKinley said there were no injuries found on them.
Lawrence, where the University of Kansas is located, is home to around 90,000 residents but swells by another 25,000 when school is in session. McKinley said that after more that two decades on the job, this is one of the most disturbing incidents he has witnessed.
“I’ve never personally come in contact with a situation where children had been bound,” he said. “They had their arms tied behind their backs, their feet were tied so they couldn’t run away, and the children had been blindfolded. It’s just one of those things that you wonder what would have happened If this witness had not called the police. At the time, I didn’t know what the situation could have been.”
McKinley said Gomez and his wife were arrested for felony child endangerment and child abuse, and Gomez was also charged with resisting arrested.
“We actually had a prosecutor, and this is a little unusual, come to the building where we were doing the interview so that they knew exactly what was going on,” McKinley said.
He said police interviewed all five children as well as their parents, but he would not discuss the contents of the interviews. He said that after police finished interviewing the children late Wednesday afternoon, they were placed in protective custody.
Both parents left behind a trail of arrests and financial problems in Illinois.
Deborah, was placed on supervision in October 1998 after she plead guilty to misdemeanor endangering the life of a child. She admitted leaving two young sons, then ages 2 and 3, home alone for 8 hours on March 13, 1998 when the family lived at a Naperville apartment. Prosecutors hauled her back into court in 2001 after they said she failed to comply with counseling and parenting classes. She later complied.
Adolfo Gomez was released from a stint in prison in January 1984, where he served less than 3 years for burglary and theft convictions. He later was arrested three times by police in Bartlett, Glendale Heights and Lombard on suspicion of driving intoxicated.
Though charges were dismissed in the two earlier DUI arrests in 2003 and 2005, the man pleaded guilty to a November 2007 DUI in Lombard in which his blood-alcohol level was tested at .138, above the legal threshold of .08, court records show.
His sentence was revoked in August 2009 when he failed to comply with various court orders, such as to pay a $1,350 fine and complete a victim-impact panel. He was resentenced last year and ordered to serve 12 days in the DuPage County jail. He was released from the Wheaton facility in January.
The couple lived in various apartments across DuPage and Cook counties. They were evicted at least twice, most recently in 2009 in Wood Dale after a long battle with their landlord. Deborah Gomez also sued the elementary school district in the town for an incident involving one of her daughters and other students on Sept. 17, 2009. The lawsuit later was dismissed.
http://i.imgur.com/IWzIi.jpg
A couple from Northlake were charged with child abuse and endangerment after police found two of their children, ages 5 and 7, bound hand and foot and blindfolded in a Walmart parking lot in Lawrence, Kan., authorities say.
Police found the 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl sitting outside the family’s older gray Chevrolet Suburban, blindfolded and bound at the hands and feet, after a woman called 911 Wednesday morning.
“We’re very fortunate that she saw this, because it didn’t occur in the middle of the parking lot,” said Lawrence Police Sgt. Trent McKinley.
The SUV – which apparently had transmission problems, was parked in the far corner of the lot, and the view of the children was further shielded by a earthen berm and a retaining wall.
“I don’t know if the witness was going to the garden center, which is on the west side of the store, or using a little-used exit, but she was in a position to see quite a bit more than the average person coming into the parking lot would have seen.
"And she saw what she believed to be a child that was bound. So when we responded to that, often times in this job usually what you’re given is not what’s occurring. That kind of happened here – what we actually found were two children that were bound outside the vehicle.”
McKinley said three other children -- 12- and 13-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy -- locked themselves inside the SUV, which had clothing, cardboard and other items stacked across the windows and blocking any view inside.
Police did not try to force their way into the SUV, but rather called juvenile officers who helped talk the children into coming out on their own about an hour later, McKinley said.
Their father, Adolfo Gomez, 52, was detained by officers when he returned to the Suburban and was Tasered when he tried to break free and enter the SUV, McKinley said. His wife, Deborah Gomez, 43, was arrested inside the store about 10 minutes later.
The two children who were bound were examined at the scene, and McKinley said there were no injuries found on them.
Lawrence, where the University of Kansas is located, is home to around 90,000 residents but swells by another 25,000 when school is in session. McKinley said that after more that two decades on the job, this is one of the most disturbing incidents he has witnessed.
“I’ve never personally come in contact with a situation where children had been bound,” he said. “They had their arms tied behind their backs, their feet were tied so they couldn’t run away, and the children had been blindfolded. It’s just one of those things that you wonder what would have happened If this witness had not called the police. At the time, I didn’t know what the situation could have been.”
McKinley said Gomez and his wife were arrested for felony child endangerment and child abuse, and Gomez was also charged with resisting arrested.
“We actually had a prosecutor, and this is a little unusual, come to the building where we were doing the interview so that they knew exactly what was going on,” McKinley said.
He said police interviewed all five children as well as their parents, but he would not discuss the contents of the interviews. He said that after police finished interviewing the children late Wednesday afternoon, they were placed in protective custody.
Both parents left behind a trail of arrests and financial problems in Illinois.
Deborah, was placed on supervision in October 1998 after she plead guilty to misdemeanor endangering the life of a child. She admitted leaving two young sons, then ages 2 and 3, home alone for 8 hours on March 13, 1998 when the family lived at a Naperville apartment. Prosecutors hauled her back into court in 2001 after they said she failed to comply with counseling and parenting classes. She later complied.
Adolfo Gomez was released from a stint in prison in January 1984, where he served less than 3 years for burglary and theft convictions. He later was arrested three times by police in Bartlett, Glendale Heights and Lombard on suspicion of driving intoxicated.
Though charges were dismissed in the two earlier DUI arrests in 2003 and 2005, the man pleaded guilty to a November 2007 DUI in Lombard in which his blood-alcohol level was tested at .138, above the legal threshold of .08, court records show.
His sentence was revoked in August 2009 when he failed to comply with various court orders, such as to pay a $1,350 fine and complete a victim-impact panel. He was resentenced last year and ordered to serve 12 days in the DuPage County jail. He was released from the Wheaton facility in January.
The couple lived in various apartments across DuPage and Cook counties. They were evicted at least twice, most recently in 2009 in Wood Dale after a long battle with their landlord. Deborah Gomez also sued the elementary school district in the town for an incident involving one of her daughters and other students on Sept. 17, 2009. The lawsuit later was dismissed.