Posted on 08/04/2006 9:44:23 AM PDT by Smogger
ONTARIO - A 28-year-old substitute teacher arrested Thursday on suspicion of molesting a 10-year-old girl may have molested more than 100 children over the past three years. Ontario resident Eric Norman Olsen, 28, was arrested Thursday at the Ontario Police Department when he came in for an interview with detectives, said Ontario police Detective Diane Galindo. Olsen was arrested around 3:20 p.m., Galindo said.
Police began their investigation on June 13 after a student reported that Olsen had inappropriately touched a 10-year-old female student. That student reported the incident to a staff member and the police were contacted. The alleged lewd acts occurred at Berlyn Elementary in the Ontario/Montclair School District.
The victim told investigators that Olsen touched her inappropriately on several occasions, the police statement said. During one incident, Olsen is alleged to have used force to touch the victim.
Olsen claims to have molested between 100 and 200 female children over a three-year time period, police said.
Olsen may have molested the other children while he was employed at various school districts within the Inland Empire.
Investigators said they do not believe Olsen is making false claims on the number of children he admitted to molesting "because of the way he explained it to us," Galindo said.
Police do not yet know if Olsen has a previous arrest record.
Olsen committed the lewd acts with the victim while other children were in the classroom over a two-and-a-half-hour time period, the statement said.
"Any type of touching with a teacher is mis-appropriate," Galindo said. "The way he touched them, and his reaction to the way he touched them, leads us to believe it was deliberately mis-appropriate."
Olsen was immediately removed from the classroom once the investigation began, Galindo said.
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing Web site has Olsen listed as holding a valid credential in the state of California. However, no further information was immediately available on the status of that credential.
By early Thursday evening, Galindo said police had not yet searched Olsen's Ontario apartment.
The 28-year-old told police he is employed with the Fontana Unified School District. Officials from that district could not be reached for comment.
Detectives did not arrest Olsen immediately because they wanted to ensure they could present a solid case to the District Attorney's Office, Galindo said.
"We had to complete the statements," Galindo said. "We had to have everything neat. We wanted to do a full investigation."
James Kidwell, deputy superintendent of human resources for the Ontario/Montclair School District, said he was unaware of the allegations when contacted during a regularly scheduled school board meeting Thursday night. He did say other school officials may have been aware of the allegations.
Kidwell said the district subjects substitute teachers to background checks, which include fingerprinting.
Such precautions do not always prevent would-be predators from slipping under the radar, Galindo said.
"If he's never been arrested before they wouldn't have found anything anyway."
Olsen has been booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of one count of committing lewd acts with a child under the age of 14 and on suspicion of using force to commit a lewd act on a child under 14, Galindo said.
Olsen is not married and has no children of his own.
Police believe there are other victims who have not yet come forward. Anyone with information on this investigation is asked to call Ontario police Detective Gary Naranjo at (909) 395-2764. The Daily Bulletin can be reached by phone at (909) 987-6397. The city desk can be reached at citydesk@dailybulletin.com.
No one would dare try to paint all teachers as molestors as they have tried to paint all Catholic priests.
If only teachers were allowed to marry.
If only teachers were allowed to marry.
LOL! Thank you, you made my day!
The scathing indictments of the Catholic Church were mainly for the cover-ups and enabling the molestors to continue.
As for this case, something is very, very wrong with the way children are being raise, when over 100 in this age range are molested by a single teacher before one child finally reports it. My scathing indictment here is for the parents of all the kids who didn't report it. Since this guy was teaching a 10 year old in the case we know about, it's doubtful that any of his substitute teaching assignments were at the preschool level, so we're talking abotu children of an age that they should know this is way wrong and needs to be reported. Maybe some of them did tell their parents, and the parents ignored it. Mega-scathing indictment for any parents in that category.
And no, I'm not ignoring the fact that the perv is the chief offender here, but if a society is going to raise children in a way that the overwhelming majority of them won't sound the alarm when a perv does this sort of thing to them, that society is rolling out the welcome mat for pervs.
He'll be free in less than a year, the way the government runs things he will fall through the cracks.
As far as I know, there is no public school teacher child molester database within the US, never mind internationally. I'll go out on a limb and attribute this to the NEA.
Actually, when my mother started teaching many years ago, female teachers were not allowed to marry. If they did they were fired. Explains why there were so many "old maids" in the ranks of teachers when us old folks were younguns.
Given the first definition of molest, I think it's possible to molest millions. Al Franken annoys me everytime I see him on TV.
1. To disturb, interfere with, or annoy.
2. To subject to unwanted or improper sexual activity.
Executions are too good for these creeps
Uh, it's not *that* Ontario.
why would anyone want another Ontario?? One is too many =o)
Dear GovernmentShrinker,
"The scathing indictments of the Catholic Church were mainly for the cover-ups and enabling the molestors to continue."
This fellow molests upwards of a couple of hundred kids, and you think no one at all in his places of employment had any idea whatsoever that something's not right?
The fact is, estimates are that there are perhaps 100,000 children per year molested in public schools. Do you think that in large numbers of these cases there isn't someone looking the other way? That strains belief.
sitetest
In some cases there are no doubt people looking the other way. But not people who publicly hold themselves out to be guardians of Catholic/Christian faith and morals. I think it's perfectly normal for people to be more appalled by a Catholic bishop or archbishop actively covering up child molestation and helping arrange tranfers of known molestors to new locations where they'll have access to more victims, than by some public school educrat not bothering to report suspicions.
In this particular case, the guy didn't have "a place of employment", he was working in many different schools on an irregular schedule as a substitute teacher. In that situation I don't find it hard to believe that none of his temporary or permanent superiors knew about his activities, especially since we're talking about a school district or districts where apparently over 100 elementary and/or middle school aged children can be molested without a single one of them reporting it to a parent who would in turn call police and raise a massive ruckus.
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