A 12-year-old girl was taken into custody by police after she confessed to stabbing her younger brother.
According to a statement released by the Tulsa Police Department on January 6, a 911 call was received just before midnight on January 5 about a stabbing at an apartment a few miles south of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The police said that responding officers learned that the stabbing happened while everyone in the house was asleep. The children’s parents told police they were upstairs sleeping in their bedroom when their daughter woke them up. She told her parents that she had just stabbed her brother in his room.
First responders were already at the home by the time officers from the Tulsa Police Department arrived. The paramedics performed CPR on the young boy before rushing him to a nearby hospital.
The boy was immediately taken into surgery, but he succumbed to his wounds. Doctors pronounced him dead at around 2:30 am on Friday, January 6.
Police took the 12-year-old girl into custody, and according to police statements, she remained at the Family Center for Juvenile Justice in Tulsa. The Tulsa Police Child Crisis Unit will be investigating the incident.
Richard Meulenberg, Tulsa Police Captain, told a news outlet that intent would be a critical part of the case and the court system would have to work that out. He said that investigators did some interviews with her, but they were very preliminary due to her age.
Oklahoma law allows for law enforcement to hold her for up to five working days before filing a petition in court that would outline their potential allegations against her.
Even though Oklahoma law prohibits people 12 and below from being held, it makes exceptions for children suspected of committing felony crimes and in instances where police think the child might be a danger to themselves or others.
State law only allows children over the age of 13 to be tried as adults for allegations of murder.
“All homicides are tragic, but the 2nd homicide of 2023 in Tulsa shows a definitive societal problem,” Tulsa Police Department Chief Wendell Franklin said. “The question is, how does society address a child killing another child?”
