Lake Hefner is a popular destination as an urban oasis in the heart of Oklahoma City. On sunny days, families and fitness enthusiasts flock to the lake for walking, running, cycling, or rollerblading along the trails; sailing, fishing, or kiteboarding on the lake; golfing on the park's golf course; or dining at one of the lakeside restaurants. But it's not all good clean fun at Lake Hefner.
Over a four-day sting beginning last Thursday, the Oklahoma City Police Department's IMPACT unit arrested 34 men on complaints of engaging in public lewdness. The police arrived at Lake Hefner's Hobie Point after a man sailing with his two sons called police saying he saw two men engaging in a public sex act. Within two hours, reports say, police set up operations at Hobie Point and arrested nearly three dozen men over the course of four days.
Among those arrested were a former Piedmont city councilman and an employee of the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office, who was fired after his arrest. The men were arrested on municipal complaints and fined a joint total of $43,000. They will not be criminally charged in state court, although violating the state's public decency statutes is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum of one year in county jail if prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office.
Engaging in public lewdness is not considered a sex crime, and it is defined under the same statute the includes public urination. Oklahoma law defines public indecency under 21 O.S.§ 22:
“Every person who willfully and wrongfully commits any act which grossly injures the person or property of another, or which grossly disturbs the public peace or health, or which openly outrages public decency, including but not limited to urination in a public place, and is injurious to public morals, although no punishment is expressly prescribed therefore by this code, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The sting conducted last week and early this week was not the first attempt Oklahoma City police have made to clean up Hobie Point.
In February 2012, police arrested 16 men on public indecency complaints, including a Boy Scout leader, whose membership in the organization was revoked upon his arrest; however, the case against him was eventually dismissed.
In April 2009, police arrested 16 men at Hobie Point on indecent exposure complaints. Unlike outraging public decency, indecent exposure is a felony sex crime punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison, $20,000 in fines, and lifetime registration as an Oklahoma sex offender. After Oklahoma City police announced those arrests, Sergeant Jennifer Wardlow told reporters, "I can't say whether five years from now whether it will be the same.We are proactive in our approach in trying to eliminate this." More than four years later, it is not the same--the number of arrests in a four-day span have more than doubled.
Lake Hefner park officials assert that Hobie Park is safe for families. However, you just might want to put blinders on the kids if you are in that area.
