Bubbaworld

Publication Date: 3/17/2006
Last Update: 3/17/2006

February 22, 2006 started off normal enough for Julie Owens and her sons Steven, age 7, and Brian, age 8. The boys are first and second graders at the Talihina Elementary School in Talihina, Oklahoma, which bills itself as “Oklahoma’s Last Frontier”. It was only after the boys were off to school and Julie was preparing to go to work that life became terrifying for the Owens family.

At approximately 8:30 am, Julie received “The Call“. If anything can send a cold chill down a parent’s spine it is a telephone call informing them that their child is sick, injured or in trouble. Such calls are every parent’s worst fear and sometimes their worst nightmare. The call that February morning was just such a call for Julie Owens.

For Owens ‘The Call‘ was terrifying because it conveyed the news that her two young sons had been arrested and were being taken to the Talihina Police Department. The call was not from the Talihina Police Department but from Angela Rogers, the Principal of Talihina Elementary School, the person whose actions resulted in the arrest of Owen’s sons. At the time of the call, Owen’s sons were being taken into custody by Police Chief Jack England and officer Brian Hibdon.

So what could two young boys do that justified such a drastic and terrifying action on the part of a school principal? Did they assault a fellow student? A teacher, maybe? Or did they allegedly commit some other heinous crime at school? One necessitating their immediate arrest and detention at the hands of two of Talihina’s five police officers?

No, the boys were accused of none of those things. They, along with a friend were accused of stealing a newspaper from the front yard of a home by which they passed on their way to school.

In response to Rogers’ call, Julie Owens rushed to the Talihina Police Department where she found her terrified sons awaiting her arrival. There, Owens confirmed that her sons had in fact been arrested and she along with one boy at a time would be required to write up their official statements regarding the ‘crime’, a childish prank to which the boys readily admitted.

Once the boys were ‘Marandized’ and their statements written, they were taken to another area within the Talihina Police Department were they were fingerprinted and their ‘mug shots’ were taken, this without their mother’s knowledge. Steven and Brian were officially charged with petty larceny and received a court date of April 12th at 4:00 pm before Talihina City Judge Mary Ann Coleman.

While at the Police Department Owens learned many of the details of the ‘crime wave’ and the handling, or more accurately the mishandling, of what should have been a simple matter. Owens learned that the theft of the newspaper surfaced when the gentleman from whose yard it was stolen called the school in order that the parents of the children might be informed of their pilfering and take corrective action. The gentleman in no way wished to involve the police, otherwise he would have simply called the police department rather than the school.

Owens also learned that following the gentleman’s call to the school, that Principal Rogers called the boys into her office, searched their backpacks and questioned them. At this time they admitted to taking the newspaper and ‘messing with mailboxes’, the latter of which was not accurate as the only boxes of any type with which the boys ‘messed’ were newspaper boxes and from which they took nothing.

Rogers then called the police department to report a crime which she obviously did not witness and of which she likewise had no first hand knowledge. Only after the two officers arrived at the school did Rogers call Julie Owens to inform her that, at that very moment, her sons were being arrested and taken to the Talihina Police Department.

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