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Are Your Children SAFE at School? Pt. 2 (The majority of schools do not conduct background checks)
http://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2012/01/05/child-predator-arrested-by-alabaster-police/
Alabaster police said a former school teacher has admitted to sexually abusing at least 21 girls at various Alabaster schools over a 25-year period, including at least one incident in a classroom in front of other students.
Alabaster Deputy Police Chief Curtis Rigney announced the arrest of Daniel Montague Acker Jr., 49, during a press conference Jan. 5. Acker has been charged with three counts of felony first-degree sexual abuse.
The three charges are related to three separate incidents involving one former student three years ago, Rigney said. “At least one incident” happened in a classroom in front of other children, Rigney said. Rigney said the most recent incident happened when the female was in fourth grade at Thompson Intermediate School in 2009.
The charges came after the former student came forward to police last week, Rigney said. Rigney said Acker was arrested at the Alabaster Police Department after he came in to talk with detectives. The female is now between 12 and 13 years old.
“It’s despicable,” Rigney said. “It’s terrible. It did affect her emotionally for a long time.”
Rigney said Acker, who is the son of Shelby County Commissioner Dan Acker Sr., admitted to molesting more than 20 other students during his teacher career in Alabaster.
“We anticipate more charges in the future,” Rigney said. “We will continue our investigation until we are satisfied every child contacted by this man has had a chance to tell their story.
Hopefully we won’t have as many victims as we are planning on.”
Acker, who retired in May 2009, was a substitute bus driver with Shelby County Schools and drove a bus as recently as this week, Rigney said. Acker, an Alabaster resident, is married with children, Rigney said.
02/06/2012 Parents protest California school over teacher child molestation horror
Outraged parents staged a protest Monday at the southern California elementary school where one teacher allegedly fondled second-graders and another allegedly spoon-fed students his semen.
It doesn’t appear the two teachers conspired together, authorities said, but both were arrested last week on suspicion of sex abuse — sending shock waves through the community of Miramonte Elementary School in South Los Angeles.
The protesting parents carried a large banner that read “We the parents demand that our children be protected from lewd acts,”.
Two female students allegedly abused by teacher Mark Berndt claim their female teacher regularly pulled them out of class and escorted them to Berndt’s door for his twisted games, lawyer Brian Claypool told the Daily News.
Berndt, 61, was arrested last week and charged with binding and blindfolding dozens of students and subjecting them to lewd acts for his sexual pleasure between 2005 and 2010, authorities said.
03/12/2012 Substitute teacher arrested on suspicion of molestation
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/la-mirada-teacher-molestation-charges.html
A substitute teacher at Los Coyotes Middle School in La Mirada was arrested Monday on suspicion that he molested a female student in a classroom.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Scott of the department’s Special Victims Unit said the mother of a female student reported to Norwalk sheriff’s station deputies Thursday that her daughter told her a male substitute teacher, Ted Nishihara, had touched her in a sexual manner during class. Scott said the girl is a preteen.
On Monday, detectives went to the school and interviewed students, staff members and others. Investigators then contacted Nishihara at his home.
Scott said that after interviewing Nishihara, detectives arrested him on suspicion of lewd acts upon a child. He was booked at the Cerritos sheriff’s station. His bail is set at $200,000.
According to Nishihara’s resume, he graduated in 2006 with a bachelor of arts in psychology. He has previously worked at the ABC Unified School District in Cerritos and Garden Grove Unified as a substitute teacher. He has also worked for Long Beach Unified as an instructional aide.
04/04/2012 MORENO VALLEY: Rios arrested on suspicion of rape, pimping.
A former Long Beach teacher’s aide and Parks Department supervisor was sentenced to eight years in prison Tuesday for the molestation of three young boys he met through his work with the school district and the city.
Rudy Rivera, 29, pleaded no contest on April 10 to nine felony counts, including three counts of child molestation, on the eve of what would have been his trial. He instead agreed to a plea deal.
Two victims addressed Rivera in court Tuesday, saying they had been robbed of their innocence and suffered irreparable emotional damage. One of the victims told the court he went from earning straight A’s to flunking his classes after the abuse.
“Their lives are ruined,” Deputy District Attorney Carol Rose said after the sentencing.
06/22/2012 Orange County teacher arrested on suspicion of molesting four girls
An Orange County middle school teacher is in custody on suspicion of molesting four students, including a girl who says he had sex with her in a San Clemente classroom, police said.
Richard Rack, a 50-year-old math teacher at Shorecliffs Middle School in San Clemente, was being held Friday on $1-million bail after an investigation that began in November escalated when Orange County sheriff’s detectives learned he had had a sexual relationship with a teenage girl for two years.
“The sexual relationship began when she was a student in his classroom. The sexual acts occurred in the classroom and at the girl’s home,” said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Amormino said that despite being under investigation for alleged misconduct with two other students and being arrested in June for child annoyance related to those allegations, Rack while out on bail continued his activities with the third girl.
“This contact continued up until last week,” Amormino said. “His behavior leads us to believe there may be other victims out there.”
Rack was charged in June with two counts of annoying or molesting a child in connection with two victims and pleaded not guilty.
On Thursday, Rack was re-arrested on suspicion of oral copulation of a minor and lewd acts upon a child 14 or 15 years old.
The November investigation began when a teenage girl claimed that Rack engaged in sexual and inappropriate behavior with her, including asking her to wear a low-cut blouse, commenting on her bust and looking down her shirt. He also allegedly hugged and kissing her.
Capistrano Unified School District officials placed Rack on leave Dec. 1 as Special Victims Unit investigators interviewed his students. Detectives discovered another girl who, while younger than 14, was allegedly coerced by Rack into sending him a naked picture. Those allegations led to his arrest June 6 on suspicion of child annoyance.
After a search of his cellphone, detectives found the third victim. She revealed to investigators that she had sexual relations with Rack for two years since she was in his class, Amormino said.
Amormino said a fourth victim has come forward with further allegations. Rack has been at the school since 2002, according to officials there. The sheriff’s department is now examining his background in more detail.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/LA-schools-sued-in-teacher-molestation-case-3696788.php
A former Los Angeles elementary school teacher molested 14 students and officials did nothing to protect them, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the nation’s second-largest school district.
The negligence and liability suit is the third to stem from charges that Mark Berndt abused children as young as 7 at Miramonte Elementary School. He was arrested in January and remains jailed after pleading not guilty to committing lewd acts with 23 youngsters.
The suit claims current and former school principals and other officials in the Los Angeles Unified School District ignored student complaints dating back more than a decade that Berndt engaged in improper behavior with students.
The district also has a continuing “culture of silence” regarding teacher misconduct, according to the suit that also claims the mothers of 14 children suffered emotional trauma. It seeks unspecified damages.
The district, which has not yet seen the lawsuit, is committed to working with the community to “improve trust and promote healing,” said a statement by district General Counsel David Holmquest.
“We are continuing our efforts to ensure that we are doing everything possible to provide a safe learning and working environment for our students and staff,” the statement said.
Prosecutors contend that Berndt made students play a bizarre tasting game, blindfolding and feeding them his semen smeared on cookies and spoons. Some of the alleged acts date back to 2005.
The case surfaced when pictures of the students were sent to a photo processor.
Berndt is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of the mothers of 14 children, who are among 20 alleged victims represented by a similar lawsuit filed in May.
A third suit also was filed earlier this year on behalf of parents and 11 former students.
07/13/2012 LAUSD teacher in wild pursuit charged with molest, evading police
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=8735960
Charges were filed on Friday against the LAUSD teacher who was arrested after a dramatic high-speed pursuit.
Kip Arnold was charged with three counts of lewd act on a child who was 14, two counts of oral copulation of a person under 16, one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object and one count of evading an officer.
The 51-year-old has been with LAUSD for eight years. He remains in the hospital under observation.
Arnold led police on a wild chase on Tuesday that ended with his car launching 70 feet down an embankment. He led investigators on a chase from his Lakewood home to the South Bay.
Arnold, a physical education teacher at Southeast Middle School, is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in 2005 between June and September.
According to Bell police, Arnold met the alleged victim at Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park. The incidents happened on and off campus, during and after school hours, and the relationship went on for years, according to Mark Haushalter, the attorney for the alleged victim.
Authorities say Arnold has faced similar troubles before. According to court records, he was charged with two molestation cases in 1993 in Long Beach, but they were dismissed.
LAUSD said they are notifying students at all schools where Arnold has worked, including Southeast Middle School, Nimitz Middle School, Gage Middle School, Orchard Academies 2B and Bell High School, where former students may be attending now.
We live in a time when elected politicians ignore the needs of their constituents; where the judiciary and police institutions will not uphold the rights of citizens; where the media are afraid to report the truth; where lawlessness abounds and ordinary people are left unprotected and defenseless against the rapacity of a few. The answer to our dilemma is for people of courage to actively help each other. Only if we unite can we succeed. That is the only way. There is no other way. People, get up, stand up! ORGANIZE!
