13-year-old girl arrested for alleged school bus assaults

PALMER –—A 13-year-old Sutton girl is being held in the Mat-Su Youth Facility after two boys said she sexually assaulted them on a school bus.

The boys, also 13, of Sutton, said the girl touched them over their clothing, Palmer Police Det. Kelly Turney said. Police went to Palmer Junior Middle School Jan. 9 to investigate and ended up arresting the girl.

Turney said little information could be released about the incident since all the involved parties are juveniles and that a press release discussing the case was necessarily brief and vague.

“All people see is what we can release, but I can tell you it’s not that simple,” Turney said.

He said officers weighed the facts of the case and decided that two charges of second-degree harassment and one each of second-degree sexual assault and attempted second-degree sexual assault were appropriate.

“You balance the public safety, the safety of the victims and then you take a look at those and you balance those with what’s going to be the best decision to be made to reach those goals,” Turney said.

Officer discretion allows for a range of options, he said, from issuing a verbal warning and releasing the suspect to his or her parents on one end to putting the suspect in jail on the other.

Turney said that while he could not discuss the specifics of the evidence collected, in this case the facts justified incarcerating the girl.

“In general, if you have an instance where a behavior is occurring and another person, whether it be an adult or a juvenile, and that behavior is asked to cease and that behavior continues ... you have to follow through on that,” Turney said.

The detective has heard a little of what the community has been saying publicly about the arrest and some folks seem upset officers arrested a 13-year-old girl. But police, he said, are gender-blind.

“Reverse the genders and if a boy, generally speaking, if a boy touches a girl inappropriately on the school bus and the school district and the police don’t take action, can you imagine the outcry there would be?” Turney said.

Turney said Wednesday that no bail amount has been set for the girl.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.