A criminal investigation is ongoing into a complaint filed in January alleging that multiple employees of the Sierra Vista Unified School District watched a video of a 14-year-old special needs student engaging in sexual activity while sitting alone on his school bus.
Documents obtained by Arizona Daily Independent show two SVUSD employees approached a Sierra Vista police officer in early January about concerns with their supervisor’s conduct in connection to the Aug. 30, 2021 video. The video came from a security camera installed on the school bus.
Bus video footage is often reviewed for evidence of students violating district policy. For the Aug. 30 incident, the district’s transportation supervisor viewed the video of the boy, who is described in the police report as severely developmentally delayed with the mental equivalence of a child about the age of six.
The student was given a misconduct notice at the time and was suspended from the bus, according to a notice sent to the boy’s mother.
But the two SVUSD employees told Sierra Vista Ofc. Christopher Davis on Jan. 5 about improper displaying of the sexually explicit video. [At this time none of the employee or witness names are being published by Arizona Daily Independent as no one has been charged with a crime.]
In Arizona, duplicating, distributing, exhibiting, or possessing “any visual depiction in which a minor is engaged in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct” is considered a Class 2 felony of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, or what is commonly known as child pornography.
Davis’ report notes he spoke with the administrative assistant to SVUSD Superintended Eric Holmes and was told an internal investigation about the video was conducted in November 2021. But the matter was never referred to the police department.
Det. Jessica Ferrel took over the investigation on Jan. 6, although her efforts were initially delayed while SVUSD administrators sought legal advice as to whether the names of district employees could be given to the detective. Ferrel was also told the video in question had been deleted at some point.
The detective eventually interviewed the bus driver from Aug. 30 and learned that a bus monitor observed the boy’s activities and told him to stop. The monitor then informed the bus driver and they reported the incident to SVUSD’s transportation supervisor.
That is when the hard drive for the security system’s eight cameras was removed from the bus, Ferrel noted in her report. The transportation supervisor asked the bus driver and monitor to view the video in her presence.
Ferrel also interviewed several other employees who provided conflicting statements as to who else was asked to watch the video or were offered an opportunity to do so, and who actually watched it.
According to Ferrel’s report, at least two bus monitors who regularly work with special needs students said they were asked by their supervisor to view the video without any forewarning of the content.
One of the two assumed she was shown the video so she would be aware of the situation if the boy was on one of her buses in the future. However, she said the supervisor could have simply told her about the issue without sharing the graphic video.
The other monitor said he found the supervisor’s actions “disturbing” and an example of “poor judgment.”
On Jan. 12, a search warrant was executed simultaneously at three SVUSD locations – the district office, the transportation center located at Buena High School, and the school bus itself. The warrant allowed for seizure of any computer equipment “that may contain images of child pornography” related to the bus incident.
It also allowed for the seizure of the “files, reports, grievances, and discipline records” pertaining to the district’s internal investigation.
On Feb. 1, Ferrel was told by SVUSD staff that her request to interview Superintendent Holmes would be passed along to the district’s attorney. Due to redactions to the police report, it is unclear whether Holmes has made himself available for that interview.
Ferrel’s report does describe some of the SVUSD records obtained through the search warrant. Those records show that on Dec. 3, the transportation supervisor was given a five-day suspension without pay for “gratuitously” showing the video to two employees “who had no legitimate business reason to see it.”
The supervisor resigned shortly after the search warrant was executed. She has retained attorney Ralph Ellinwood to represent her during the investigation. In turn, the attorney has engaged Inter-State Investigative Services.
In recent weeks, the private investigator has submitted several documents to Ferrel from interviews with other current and former transportation employees. And that has brought a few twists to the case.
All of the interviews conducted by the private investigator allege there was a lack of training and protocols related to the bus security video. And some of the interviews contend that bus monitors were routinely shown security videos in an effort to prevent similar disciplinary incidents in the future.
The Inter-State Investigative Services interviews also point to alleged acts and attitudes of insubordination by some SVUSD employees who believed the supervisor was given the job without sufficient experience.
But the biggest bombshell, according to Ferrel’s report, is a suggestion by the private investigator that the transportation supervisor was not the first SVUSD employee to look at the Aug. 30 bus video.
One of the employees interviewed by Inter-State Investigative Services says he saw two female employees watching the video of the student. This occurred in the transportation office before the supervisor received the video, the interviewed employee said.
One of the two women is identified as one of the people who first reported the video issue to Ofc. Davis back in January.
And in another twist, Ferrel’s report shows that a few hours before Davis was contacted about the video on Jan. 5, a former district employee told two other SVPD officers that the supervisor had been “showing all the bus drivers” the video when he worked there.
Whether the timing of his statement was an odd coincidence or part of a conspiracy remains a question.
On March 3, Ellinwood informed Ferrel that he has advised his client to refuse any interviews. The attorney also requested to be advised if the Cochise County Attorney’s Office decides to present the case to a county grand jury.
In the meantime, Ferrel is waiting on the completion of a forensic examination of a desktop computer taken from the transportation office.