Korean-American USC student from Orange County arrested for child molestation

UPDATE (same day, 12:15 p.m. PST):

MSNBC reports that Daniel Hansol Oh (오한솔) has confessed to molesting three girls besides his accuser, according to Fullerton police. He is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

The Orange County Register reports that Oh, who is pursuing a master's degree in music, was arrested during a music class. They said the alleged molestations were reported to police this past December. She said they had been occurring from the time Oh began teaching her in December 2003 until December 2006.

The OCR confirms that the victims are all "Korean," as I suspected (see original post below), though it is not clear if they were Korean-American or Korean immigrants. 

As I also surmised, embarrassment was an impediment to victims coming forward, which is hardly a surprise. Says Fullerton police sergeant Mike MacDonald: "In one case, the victim didn't report it because she didn't want to bring embarrassment to the family." 

The OCR says police are bringing this to the public's attention because Oh may have been teaching up to fifteen girls during that period. Anyone who may have been victimized by Oh is asked to contact Detective Kathryn Crum of the Fullerton Police Department at 714-738-5327.

ORIGINAL POST (Thursday, February 26, 9:30 a.m. PST):

Daniel Hansol Oh, a twenty-six-year-old USC student and music instructor from Fullerton, a northern Orange County community with a heavy kyopo population, has been arrested at USC over allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. He is being held at the Fullerton jail.

The victim (to be journalistically responsible, I should say "reported victim" or "alleged victim"), who is now fifteen, says this had been going on since she was eleven. It's not clear from the LAT story how Oh allegedly molested her, but during their weekly violin lessons — which were conducted in her house while her parents were home — the door to the room she and Oh were in was kept closed. 

The girl had told this to her pastor, who in urged her to contact the authorities, according to Fullerton police. 

If Oh really did this (and what a sad state of affairs society is in that we have to qualify such accusations from someone making allegations as horrible as sexual abuse), then kudos to this girl for being brave enough to come forward. At the very least she is going to have to deal with hacks like me, whose attempts to couch their words very carefully so as to avoid trying the accused in the public sphere have the unfortunate consequence of casting doubt on what turns out to be a completely true and horrific story. 

Police are contacting other students of Oh, to see if they were abused. This is where the authorities need to tread very lightly. It's entirely possible that Oh is guilty of molesting this girl but not the others, and it's even possible he's guilty of molesting no one, but when confronted with the knowledge of accusations by others (plus hard evidence, if they have some) then it has the potential to make even non-victims start to see ambiguous behavior in a sinister light. 

Of course, psychologists, sex abuse experts, and legal authorities are (or should be) aware of this. At any rate, they have Oh in custody, so no one is currently in harm's way, so take it slowly and carefully. Do it right.

It's terrible that we live in a society so dominated by fear. It's disgusting that people like Mark McDowell, a convicted child molester who left the country to teach more young girls in South Korea, come into people's homes purportedly to teach young children something when they are actually stalking their prey. Girls and boys who have been molested as children have had a huge barrier to adult normalcy placed in their way. 

With help from understanding loved ones and professionals, they can achieve that normalcy, but when the molestation is kept secret (by a scared child or embarrassed parents) or proper help is not available (a huge problem in our inadequate health-care system), you can get some really fu¢ked-up adults. It's sad. Very sad. And it angers me.

Okay, I got sidetracked in my "society dominated by fear" comment, but what I meant to say was that this is the reality, whether we like it or not: there are people who will do harm to your children if you let them. But there are little things we can do to protect our kids without locking them away from the rest of the world. Kids should be aware that there is such a thing as bad-touching (or whatever it's supposed to be called) and that kids can always tell their parents anything, no matter how much they think it's their own fault or how much trouble they think they're going to be in. Predators rely on kids to feel enough guilt or shame to not tell anybody. 

And keep your damn doors open, literally. There are not a lot of valid reasons why a non-relative adult (and even some relatives in many cases) should be alone in a room with a child with the door shut. Certainly a music lesson is not one of them. I'm not saying this to point out that this girl's parents were negligent (they must be feeling horrible over this, and my heart goes out to them); rather, I'm saying it offers a cautionary tale to other parents, to prevent future occurrences. 

I'm speculating here, but I am guessing that there is a good chance that Oh's accuser and his other students were also part of the kyopo community in Orange County. This brings me to a regular rant I've had since forever, that too few parents in Korea and among Korean-Americans are adequately aware of the signs of sexual abuse. 

Similarly, many are unaware that the predators are people they think they should trust (including teachers and uncles, etc.). Kudos to the pastor who urged the girl to bring this to the police than to deal with it in a way that would save humiliation for all parties involved.