(Stillwater, Okla.) — An arrest warrant has been issued for a Yale man accused of using a belt or strap on Jan. 4 to hit the 3-year-old son of his then-girlfriend, who subsequently obtained an emergency protective order against him.
A felony child injury charge was filed by Payne County Assistant District Attorney Mike Kulling last week against John Paul Arnold, 21, who has not yet been taken into custody, court records show.
The alleged injury was reported on Jan. 4 after a relative of the child said she was washing off the boy’s back during a bath when he asked her to stop — saying “that hurts,” Yale Police Chief Phillip Kelly wrote in an affidavit for an arrest warrant.
She said that she turned the boy around “and saw red marks on his back, from shoulder to shoulder, from possibly a strap or belt. Also there were bruises on the lower right of back,” according to the affidavit.
Asked what happened, the 3-year-old boy said that Arnold, with whom they were then living, “had whipped him with a belt and yelled at him,” the affidavit alleged.
The Yale police chief said that he had spoken with Arnold “on two different occasions and asked for a statement and he refuses to cooperate,” according to the affidavit.
In her petition for an emergency protective order, which was issued on Feb. 28, the boy’s mother alleged “After that incident, he continued to beat my son.”
“I was scared for my life to leave, and in the past when I had tried to leave, he had threatened me and my kids’ lives, held us at his house against our will and wouldn’t let us leave.
“At the beginning of February he also pointed a shotgun at me and my two children threatening to kill us, then pointed it at himself threatening to kill himself and make us watch,” she alleged in her EPO petition.
“I am currently five months’ pregnant with his child. I was held against my will on Feb. 12, 2014. I was held for three to five hours before I broke free and ran for my life in the freezing cold about one-half a mile to the closest house.
“I banged on the door, bawling, out of breath and asked the lady to let me call my family to come get me. I used the phone and got a hold of my aunt who came and picked me up,” she alleged in her EPO petition.
“I am scared not only for my life, but for my children’s, my family’s. I am lucky I haven’t had a miscarriage from the stress I’ve been through.
“I just want to be protected and not have to watch behind me or be scared to even go to the store, afraid that something may happen,” she wrote in her EPO petition.
She said that her son, who is now 4, “has nightmares where he screams ‘don’t let John get me,’ and he has had about four of these night terrors.
“I just want to know that me and my children will be safe living in the same town as this person,” she wrote in her EPO petition.
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