Broken Arrow Girl Assaulted On Way To School; Sex Offender Arrested

A registered sex offender was arrested Thursday in connection with the attempted sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl walking to a Broken Arrow school.

Broken Arrow Police said the incident happened at the Wolf Creek neighborhood park in the 2500 block of West Fulton before 8 a.m. The park is near an elementary and a middle school.

Police say the 14-year-old girl was walking down the trail in the park, on her way to school. The teen told officers a man grabbed her and asked her to perform a sexual act on him but she broke free and ran to school.

"She did a very good job of, obviously, taking care of herself, and notifying someone, so we could get out there as soon as possible," said Cpl. Leon Calhoun.

Calhoun said the girl's school called police to report the attempted assault immediately after it happened. The girl gave police a good description of her attacker and they canvassed the Wolf Creek neighborhood.

They quickly located Peter Nolan, 27, who matched the description the girl had given and is a registered sex offender.

Court records show he pleaded guilty to sexual battery in 2007 and was ordered to serve three years of a five-year sentence. He was released in 2009. His probation on the conviction ended in 2011.

Nolan now lives with his parents, who live just a few blocks from the park and the school.

We briefly spoke with his mother outside their house. She said she wasn't aware that he was arrested Thursday.

Calhoun said police are investigating why Nolan was living so close to a schools.

"From my understanding, he was grandfathered in, is the reason he was allowed to live there, although we will be looking into that and make sure that the law went into effect after he was living there rather than before," Calhoun said.

Nolan is in jail on one complaint of lewd molestation and one complaint of lewd proposal to a minor under 16.