Police major's sex abuse of boys, men was common knowledge, multiple victims allege
His line was always the same: “Can I see it?”
The number of times former Canadian County Sheriff’s Major John Bridges used it was in the dozens, according to reports to state police and an alleged victim, R.W., of Bridges’s sexual abuse of mostly boys and men under his watch.
It went on for decades in this Oklahoma county, R.W. said. The man alleges that Bridges, who also worked as an EMT instructor at a local community college and in various police and fire agencies, also took advantage of inmates at the county jail, students in his classes and hospital workers.
The Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team has agreed not to identify victims of the alleged sexual abuse in this report. R.W. allowed Lee Enterprises to use his initials.
Never charged criminally, Bridges, of Yukon, Oklahoma, resigned in 2019 after the daughter of another of his alleged victims went public with the sexual abuse accusations upon her father’s death. She said her father was too ashamed to come forward before his death.
A culture of sexual exploitation
Canadian County Sheriff Chris West
About a dozen former deputies, attorneys and victims interviewed by Lee Enterprises accuse Canadian County Sheriff Chris West, the sitting president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, of running an office since 2017 in which sexual misconduct allegations have been ignored or pushed aside, generating unease and fear among employees and inmates. A number of those allegations also are made in civil lawsuits and criminal cases.
Four former Canadian County sheriff’s deputies or detention officers have faced criminal charges or civil complaints alleging sexual misconduct since West became sheriff of the county, located about 34 miles west of Oklahoma City, in January 2017.
More broadly, civil lawsuits are targeting West and county commissioners in part for hiring practices — or lack thereof — that accuse them of engendering a culture of sexual impropriety.
Bridges, 61, was named in the civil complaints — not as a defendant, but as an example of that alleged culture.
West was undersheriff, or the second in command of the office, when Bridges was hired. And then West promoted Bridges to major from lieutenant after West won his first election for sheriff in 2016, according to people interviewed by Lee Enterprises.
Asked about Bridges’s alleged misconduct, West told Lee Enterprises that he was made aware of the complaints after the daughter of the now-deceased man came forward to the sheriff’s office with the allegations. An internal investigation was launched, West said. West confirmed Bridges resigned in 2019.
“We looked into it, and pretty exhaustively,” West said by phone. “Based on having individuals who were willing to give testimony, we were very limited on what we were able to do…. I want to be careful because I don’t want to get caught up in some litigation.”
Bridges could not be reached for comment, despite multiple emails and calls.
‘Can I see it?’
Bridges resigned from the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office after allegations were raised accusing him of sexually abusing a boy over a decade and into the time the boy had become an adult, according to two civil cases filed in Canadian County against county commissioners, West and various deputies accused of sexual misconduct on duty.
More than a dozen others made similar allegations against Bridges, including some subordinates and students seeking EMS licenses at Redlands Community College, where Bridges was a program director, according to Canadian County sources and victims, including R.W.
EMT, EMS and paramedic students also were allegedly sexually abused by Bridges, according to court records and multiple sources. So were coworkers at Mercy EMS, a now-defunct ambulance service for the western Oklahoma City metro area, the sources said.
“He’s a monster,” R.W. told Lee Enterprise’s Public Service Journalism Team, describing one alleged assault and three years of harassment by Bridges.
It began, this man, now a 51-year-old paramedic in Oklahoma City, says when Bridges was overseeing Redlands’s certification for EMS, EMT and paramedic trainees in the 1990s.
“His tagline was, ‘Can I see it?’” R.W. explained, saying Bridges would use the urinal next to males in a men’s restroom and ask if he could see their genitals. “He would then laugh it off, like he was joking.”
R.W. was given the exact line by Bridges when he was studying to be an EMT at the college at age 19, he said.
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This was 1993, and I needed something
The top police officer’s sex abuse case that sent shockwaves
across New Zealand
Jevon McSkimming will be sentenced in December and faces up to 10 years in prison
He was one of the most powerful police officers in New Zealand.
And almost a year ago, he won the country’s top law enforcement job.
But what the public didn’t know was that Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming was facing claims of sexual abuse during an affair with a young staffer.
They also didn’t know he’s be charged with viewing illegal sex images, including of child abuse, on his work computer.
The case has provoked public outrage and reignited a debate about police power two decades after a national outcry about how the force handled another young woman’s sexual violence accusations against officers.
Since then, New Zealand's force has sought to reshape itself as a liberal and friendly law enforcement agency.
“This is a big hit to integrity and trust for the police,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told 1News on Monday. “It’s got to be built back.”
Police bosses admit that won't be simple. A scathing watchdog report this month lambasted senior officers for minimizing the claims about McSkimming as he sought to become Police Commissioner. They instead pursued his accuser for online harassment.
A damning report found failings
The saga emerged in August when McSkimming was revealed to be facing charges of possessing child sexual abuse material and other illegal sexual content. He admitted some of the charges earlier in November.
Court documents said he viewed thousands of sexual images on work devices during office hours, including numerous illegal images. He will be sentenced in December and faces up to 10 years in prison.
The images were discovered as investigators probed separate complaints made by a woman with whom McSkimming had an affair when she was a police employee. The woman, 21 when she met the then-40-year-old McSkimming, accused him of sexual abuse in messages to police bosses, politicians and news outlets.
McSkimming's peers believed his denials without question, according to a report this month by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
The watchdog said police bosses tried to rush an investigation into the complaints because they feared it would prevent McSkimming from winning the top job, but the inquiry gained momentum when lower ranking officers challenged their bosses.
No charges were laid against McSkimming over the woman's claims, but investigators charged McSkimming's accuser with online harassment of him and other officers.
The charge of harassing McSkimming was dropped this month, but the woman remains before the courts on other counts.
“The way her complaints were handled should alarm all New Zealanders,” the woman’s lawyer Steven Lack said Tuesday. “It suggests that the police were more focused on protecting Mr. McSkimming’s career and advancement than on properly assessing serious allegations of offending against him.”
The case evoked a past outrage
The case prompted fury in New Zealand, in part because it evoked previous episodes of police sexual misconduct and cover-up.
“It was like deja vu,” survivor advocate Louise Nicholas said on Tuesday. “I was so saddened to see and hear, God, we’re going through this again.”
Nicholas became a household name two decades ago over her efforts to see police officers convicted of raping her, which she said began when she was 13. The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they were subjected to sexual abuse, but Nicholas said she preferred to have her name used.
All of the prosecutions in the Nicholas case ended in mistrials or acquittals. One provoked nationwide protests when it emerged the jury hadn't been told that two of the accused former officers were already in prison for another rape.
The lead police investigator was jailed in 2007 for obstructing justice in the case, and the same year a searing report found widespread failures in police handling of sexual violence complaints.
Nicholas has since advised the agency on reforms and said much has changed, especially through employment of specialist sexual assault investigators.
“It’s not the New Zealand Police per se who have done this, it’s individuals within the police,” Nicholas said. “Those individuals have been held to account and perhaps others will be held to account as well.”
She urged prosecutors to drop the charges against McSkimming’s accuser, whom she said had been “tormented” by police inaction.
Police will face more scrutiny
The case reopened debate about an agency that has been seeking a fresh image with a so-called community policing model emphasizing diversity, unarmed officers and relationships with marginalized groups.
Several police bosses criticized in the report have left the force and two who now hold high-ranking roles at other public agencies have been placed on leave from their jobs. Two more have announced their retirements, and others still in their jobs face internal investigation.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins was asked by reporters if the episode amounted to police corruption.
“If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s not looking good, is it?” Collins said.
The officer who beat McSkimming to the commissioner job last November, Richard Chambers, has emphasized his outsider credentials since the scandal. He was posted abroad before his appointment, he told reporters, and has “no friendship” with previous police bosses.
The watchdog report made more than a dozen recommendations for the force and the government, all of which the parties have accepted. The government has announced the appointment of an independent Inspector-General of Police.
“It’s a pretty confronting, appalling, shocking, disgusting treatment of what happened to a young woman there,” Prime Minister Luxon said Monday. “That’s why we’ve gone as hard as we can, as early as we can, to actually say, we’re going to go to the highest possible oversight of police going forward.”
Ex-Harnett County deputy receives 23-years in prison for making child sexual abuse material
LILLINGTON, N.C. (WNCN) — A former deputy with the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office was sentenced to 23 years in prison for producing child sexual abuse material, federal prosecutors said Monday.
According to federal prosecutors, Edwards was under investigation for allegedly sexually harassing an inmate at the Harnett County Detention Center in October 2023 when it was discovered he sexually exploited children on the website Omegle.
The sexual exploitation happened during video calls between Edwards and juvenile victims, according to federal prosecutors.
“This defendant disgraced his badge and betrayed the community he swore to protect,” U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said in a statement. “Law enforcement officers who engage in crimes of child exploitation are no different that the predators they should be stopping. Our office will zealously pursue those who fuel the demand for child sexual abuse material, no matter their title or position.”
Harnett County Sheriff Wayne Coats said in a statement, “I want to thank the United States Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security for their dedication and professionalism throughout this investigation and prosecution. Their joint efforts helped assist in our mission to keep Harnett County safe and ensure justice is served.”
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