Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School

[Neighbor]

U.S.
Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School

By KASSONDRA CLOOS and JULIE TURKEWITZ - NOV. 6, 2015
Photo
Cañon City High School in Colorado. Students used a "photo vault" app on their phones to hide the photos, an official said. Credit Nick Cote for The New York Times

CAÑON CITY, Colo. — At least 100 students at a high school in Cañon City traded naked pictures of themselves, the authorities said Friday, part of a large sexting ring.

The revelation has left parents outraged, administrators searching for missed clues, and the police and the district attorney's office debating whether to file child pornography charges — including felony charges — against some of the participants.

George Welsh, the superintendent of the Cañon City school system, said students at Cañon City High School had been circulating 300 to 400 nude photographs, including images of "certainly over 100 different kids," on their cellphones. "This is a lot of kids involved," he said, adding that the children in the pictures were believed to be students at the high school as well as eighth graders from the middle school.

Members of the high school football team, the Cañon City Tigers, were at the center of the sexting ring, Mr. Welsh said. On Thursday night, separate community meetings were held for parents of football players and parents of other students to address the scandal, which has shocked this quiet, semirural community of 16,000. The team was forced to forfeit its final game of the season.

Because it is a felony to possess or distribute child pornography, the charges could be serious. But because most of the people at fault are themselves minors and, in some cases, took pictures of themselves and sent them to others, law enforcement officials are at a loss as to how to proceed. "Consenting adults can do this to their hearts' content," said Thom LeDoux, the district attorney, but "if the subject is under the age of 18, that's a problem."

He added that he was not interested in arresting hundreds of children and would "use discretion" if he decided to file charges.

Mr. Welsh said a significant percentage of the student body at Cañon City High School had participated, with boys and girls involved in seemingly equal numbers. The photo-sharing, some of which took place in school, was done largely on cellphone applications called "vault apps" that look innocent enough — some look like calculators — but are really secret troves of photographs accessible after entering a password.

While sexting among children is a rampant problem, "I hope no other school has it at the level we have it at," Bret Meuli, the principal of Cañon City High School, said in an interview in his office. "But I fear we aren't the only ones."

Students at the school described a competitive point system that classmates used to accrue photographs. Different point values were assigned to different students. Students who collected naked photographs gained points by adding these desirable children to their collections. Isaac Stringer, a junior interviewed outside the high school who said he did not participate in the photo-sharing, called the boy with the largest collection "the pimp of pictures."

The repercussions are likely to resonate loudly over the days and weeks ahead in this small town, a tightly knit community ringed by correctional centers, where many people are employed, as well as tourist attractions such as Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, which claims to have "America's highest suspension bridge."

Mr. Welsh, the superintendent, said in a statement that "because a large number of our high school football players were implicated in this behavior, the coaching staff and administration, after careful thought and consideration, decided that stepping on the field to play this weekend to represent the Cañon City community is just not an option."

The "sexting scandal," as parents are calling it, shocked many, and it has also elicited anger from parents who say they knew about this type of photo-sharing for years and sought unsuccessfully to get school officials to intervene. Heidi Wolfgang, 41, a mother who no longer lives in the district, said in a telephone interview that she had spoken to a Cañon City Middle School counselor in 2012 after she found photographs of a nude adolescent on a cellphone owned by her daughter, then 12.

"He told me there was nothing the school could do because half the school was sexting," Ms. Wolfgang said. She called the response "heartbreaking," and said she eventually decided to educate her child at home.

Mr. Welsh said that like other school systems across the country, Cañon City schools had received reports of students' exchanging lewd photographs, but that he had not been aware of the scope of the issue until recently, when officials received anonymous tips through a system called Colorado Safe2Tell.

"If there's not a lead that takes you to this larger thing going on, why would you go there?" Mr. Welsh said.

Another mother, Lisa Graham, 46, said her daughter, now a junior at the high school, had been "propositioned by multiple guys" during her freshman year. "She received unsolicited photos from guys, which she immediately deleted," Ms. Graham said by telephone. "I'm frustrated if people knew and didn't shut it down three years ago."

Mr. Meuli has been principal for six years, and he was assistant principal of the school before that. He said that the school had had to handle a few instances in which a girl would break up with a boy and fear that he would circulate intimate photos of her, but that nothing this serious had been brought to his attention before.

What to do about a sexting scandal involving potentially hundreds of students was not covered in his master's degree classes, Mr. Meuli said — but these days, it should be, he added.

The high school has turned over a cellphone that contains several hundred images to the police, and investigators will try to identify the children in the pictures, according to Paul Schultz, the Cañon City police chief. No arrests have been made, Chief Schultz said, and parents have been notified about the apps that can be used to mask the illicit photographs.

Mr. LeDoux, the district attorney, said the investigation would look into whether any adults were involved, whether children were bullied into participating, and whether any illegal sexual contact occurred.

Amy Adele Hasinoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver and the author of a new book, "Sexting Panic," contends that schools need to find new ways to talk to students about the issue. Rather than just demanding that students abstain from sending risqué images, she said, educators should aim for open conversations that involve guidance in "safer sexting" with trusted partners.

Teachers and school officials "think they're protecting people from harm," Professor Hasinoff said. "But we know it doesn't work."
Correction: November 6, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated the distinction that the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park claims for its bridge. It says the suspension bridge is America's highest, not the world's highest.

Kassondra Cloos reported from Cañon City, and Julie Turkewitz from New York. Katie Rogers contributed reporting from New York, and Doris Burke contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on November 7, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/colorado-students-caught-trading-nude-photos-by-the-hundreds.html [tor-safe, ensure scripts disabled]

[on the rocks]

What is the school supposed to do about it?  These are personal communications among students; it is not their business to police this type of thing.  The parents who demand the school should do something are wrong.

It is fucked up that some students got unsolicited nudes, that's not cool.  But if they are doing this willingly there is nothing the school should be able to do about it.

The D/A can go fuck himself if he's going to charge any of these teenagers with CP felonies.  That is not the correct response to sharing nudes with your peers.

This type of thing is going to happen more and more and will fortunately erode the hysteria from the point of view of the young people.  Parents will still loose their shit, but when all these teens grow up, they're not going to so draconian.  "So what, we did that all the time when I was in high school."

[BabyBoyLove]

What is the school supposed to do about it?  These are personal communications among students; it is not their business to police this type of thing.  The parents who demand the school should do something are wrong.

It is fucked up that some students got unsolicited nudes, that's not cool.  But if they are doing this willingly there is nothing the school should be able to do about it.

The D/A can go fuck himself if he's going to charge any of these teenagers with CP felonies.  That is not the correct response to sharing nudes with your peers.

This type of thing is going to happen more and more and will fortunately erode the hysteria from the point of view of the young people.  Parents will still loose their shit, but when all these teens grow up, they're not going to so draconian.  "So what, we did that all the time when I was in high school."

You would think that, but somehow it does not work that way...
Kids playing doctor has somehow gotten to be an issue to the point that CPS places children out of their home because parents allowed their children to continue seeing each other after playing "doctor". But seriously who hasn't played doctor to explore the body of friends when they were kids? But somehow "We did that as a kid" didn't quite factor in here...

Of course parents having to go to court with their kids might provoke a WTF are we doing here.

[Harkness]

The D/A can go fuck himself if he's going to charge any of these teenagers with CP felonies.  That is not the correct response to sharing nudes with your peers.

And this is one of the biggest reasons why I hate the entire "one-size-fits-all" design (most) of the world's consent laws. They say that people under a certain age aren't able to consent because they don't fully understand the possible consequences (one of the most common arguments I've seen in support of them), but if it comes to that person breaking a law, especially if they happen to be of a minority, then they apparently are still able to fully understand the consequences. An extreme double-standard that only seems to work against the population they're supposedly trying to protect.

[nubby]

Another mother, Lisa Graham, 46, said her daughter, now a junior at the high school, had been "propositioned by multiple guys" during her freshman year. "She received unsolicited photos from guys, which she immediately deleted," Ms. Graham said by telephone. "I'm frustrated if people knew and didn't shut it down three years ago."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/colorado-students-caught-trading-nude-photos-by-the-hundreds.html [tor-safe, ensure scripts disabled]

Anyone catch this?  I call bullshit on lil snowflake having "unsolicited" photos of boys randomly sent to her.  I have had girls younger than her ask me to send them "dirty" pix.  The girl is probably an insane flirt/tease and then changes the story to cover her ass.  Dunno if I'm reading too much in, but this sounds exactly like something a girl I knew would say to her folks if she got busted.

[Harkness]

Anyone catch this?  I call bullshit on lil snowflake having "unsolicited" photos of boys randomly sent to her.  I have had girls younger than her ask me to send them "dirty" pix.  The girl is probably an insane flirt/tease and then changes the story to cover her ass.  Dunno if I'm reading too much in, but this sounds exactly like something a girl I knew would say to her folks if she got busted.

Well, to be honest, there are some girls who would do this, but there are some that might not have wanted some or even any of those images or propositions. It's impossible to tell if we aren't that person ourselves...so, really, it's best not to judge anybody based on the actions of others, and since we don't know for sure whether this is actually what happened or not, we can't say...it would be unfair really to basically be against her (as well as for her and against the boys) when there's no real proof either way of the events.

[Gaki]

I agree with Harkness... but more importantly, I still find it insane that the mother blames the school by saying 'I'm frustrated if people knew and didn't shut it down three years ago.'  Now...  how could the school know if she did not.  If the daughter just deleted the photos, who is to know?

If the mother did know, did she go to anyone?  The school?  The police?  If not, then she abdicated responsibility, so she has no one to blame but herself.

And of course, just because she was sent a photo, how could someone make the connection that photos sent to someone means that there is some 1000 picture repository.

I just feel that parents are continually calling on others to do their job...  The schools do their best, I would think, to provide a safe environment.

o.0

[ministraw]

What is the school supposed to do about it?  These are personal communications among students; it is not their business to police this type of thing.  The parents who demand the school should do something are wrong.

Their motives are wrong when it is about moral indecency, so to speak. But since this is against the law and still considered child pornography here, no one can be blamed for wanting them to stop for other motives like keeping them out of trouble and stopping the child pornography from spreading. It would be absurd not to want it to stop as long as it is against the law, plus concerns for who it is sent to and what they may do. What can happen to peers who are spreading their own nudes depends on the area. Consequences are generally more likely to be given to receivers and spreaders. Reading it, I agree that it should be treated like sex. Instead of demanding students never do it, they should educate them on what other people did to really slip up and have their photographs spread in a school that would treat them terribly for it and advise them not to do that while not also encouraging or telling them they 'can' send nude photos in other instances to trusted people. They can just address the specific risky situations, without somehow being guilty of corrupting minors or whatever the charge could be depending on the area.

Anyone catch this?  I call bullshit on lil snowflake having "unsolicited" photos of boys randomly sent to her.  I have had girls younger than her ask me to send them "dirty" pix.  The girl is probably an insane flirt/tease and then changes the story to cover her ass.  Dunno if I'm reading too much in, but this sounds exactly like something a girl I knew would say to her folks if she got busted.

That's quite plausible, but it's also quite plausible that she didn't ask for the photos of the boys, and thus didn't want them either being uninterested or not wanting those dangerous photos on her phone. I personally wouldn't mind if there were no consequences, but I would still just delete the pictures and ask them not to send them to my phone. There is no way to tell the probability of her lying without at least having knowledge of her past habits and personality.

If the mother did know, did she go to anyone?  The school?  The police?  If not, then she abdicated responsibility, so she has no one to blame but herself.

And of course, just because she was sent a photo, how could someone make the connection that photos sent to someone means that there is some 1000 picture repository.

o.0

Regarding the parent who did claim to ask the principal to do something, I think at least sharing a plan of talks could soothe some. Any further demands can be replied to with the point that they won't somehow physically stop them and the physical methods are up to the parents who bought the phones.