Blame the Abusers

Is it fair to question why the Oshkosh police didn't pick up on the child abuse that was going on in the Engstrom house?

Yes.

Is it fair to blame them for their failure?

Not really.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

An Oshkosh woman accused of locking her 13-year-old stepdaughter in an attic bedroom for almost two years was able to manipulate schools, the girl's friends and even police officers who were called to her home before Christmas, an Oshkosh police spokesman said Friday.

Sgt. Steven Sagmeister said he didn't know that officers from his department had been sent to the house last month until he read about it in Friday's Journal Sentinel.

"It was kind of like getting hit with a brick," he said. "(You wonder), 'Could you have been in there that much sooner?' It's a possibility, but . . . you're trying to deal with the facts presented to you at the time. There (are) judgment calls that you have to make. . . . Even though people a lot of times think we're clairvoyant, we're not."

According to a police report obtained by the Journal Sentinel this week, Lynn Engstrom called 911 on Dec. 20 when Beth Redmann, the girl's paternal grandmother, tried to visit the girl and deliver presents. Redmann, who left before police arrived, later was ticketed for disorderly conduct after Engstrom claimed Redmann forced her way into the family's home. When Redmann talked to one of the police officers, Joseph Nichols, about making a child abuse report, he told her he had seen all four children - the stepdaughter and Engstrom's three children from a previous marriage - in the home and they were fine.

...Nichols and the other officer who responded to the 911 call in December, Mark Lehman, saw the 13-year-old come downstairs to the bathroom while they were in the Engstroms' house on Minnesota St., according to their report. She then went back upstairs. Redmann already had left, and the officers had no reason to suspect child abuse at that point, Sagmeister said.

"Everything that was done was done by manipulation of the mother," he said. "They were being told by Mrs. Engstrom the things she wanted the officers to hear."

When Nichols later talked to Redmann by phone, it was in the context of interviewing a person who had created a disturbance, Sagmeister said. Although Redmann told Nichols that she feared for the girl's well-being and had heard an alarm on her door, Nichols took no further action.

"He had just been in the house, and everything was very clean and everything seemed appropriate," Sagmeister said. "We can Monday-morning quarterback that to death, say, 'Could he have made a referral (to child protective services)? Should he have gone back to the house?' "

Nichols has not been disciplined, although he might have been "talked to," Sagmeister said. He said he didn't know whether the department would be examining its protocols in light of the situation.

I can understand why Nichols took no further action.

He assessed the situation and it appeared that everything was in order in the house.

Are police officers supposed to assume that horrific abuse is taking place in a home even though all appears to be normal?

Much is being said about Nichols not making a referral to child protective services. He supposedly wasn't thorough enough. That's easy to say in hindsight.

One could also wonder why the grandmother Beth Redmann's actions aren't being second guessed to the same degree.

Why didn't the grandmother notify child protective services herself when she realized that the police department was not going to pursue the matter?

Why did she let her granddaughter linger in those atrocious conditions? How could she live with herself knowing how the little girl was living?

While I think those are valid questions, I don't think it's fair to fault the grandmother.

Redmann was ticketed for disorderly conduct because she tried to intervene. It's not as if she did nothing.

I also don't think Nichols should be accused of negligence. Sure, it would have been much better had he sensed that there was a problem. But as Sagmeister said, the police aren't clairvoyant.

Blame falls on the abusers.

In the end, they are the only ones guilty of torturing the girl.

Responsibility lies with Lynn and Clint Engstrom, mommy and daddy.