Document: Silverton cop admits touching girl

Document: Silverton cop admits touching girl

By Melica Johnson and KATU Web Staff

SILVERTON, Ore. - A Silverton police officer arrested over the weekend in connection with sex abuse charges admitted to investigators to "tickling" a girl and touching her breasts, according to a police probable cause affidavit obtained by KATU Monday.

Officer Tony Gonzalez, 35, was being held without bond on charges of first-degree and third-degree sex abuse following his arrest on Saturday.

The charges came after a woman and her minor daughter from Keizer reported to police on Saturday multiple incidents of sex abuse and identified Gonzalez as the culprit, prosecutors said.

According to the affidavit, Gonzalez began touching the girl when she was 12 years old and continued that abuse off and on for five years. The girl finally told her mother and Gonzalez was brought in for questioning.

The affidavit said Gonzalez then admitted to investigators to "tickling" her on many occasions and that some of those times he had touched her breasts.

Gonzalez was scheduled to go before a judge Tuesday. Marion County prosecutors were expected to ask that he be held without bond.

When he was arrested Saturday, Gonzalez was on administrative leave from the Silverton Police Department, pending the outcome of an investigation into the death of Irish national Andrew Hanlon, whom Gonzalez fatally shot June 30 while responding to a report of a burglary while on duty.

Hanlon's mother, Dorothea Carroll, has said her son's death appeared to be a case of "unreasonable and excessive force" by a police officer. Hanlon was shot seven times in the abdomen, arm, thigh and back, according to a statement from his family.

The case is expected to go to a grand jury in less than two weeks.

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