| My age: | 21 | |
| I can speak: | Spanish | |
| Music: | I like blues | |
| What is my hobbies: | Looking after pets | |
| Stud: | None | |
| Smoker: | No |
AP — More than students involved in a sexting scandal at a southern Colorado high school will not face criminal charges, a prosecutor announced Wednesday in a case that illustrated the digitally saturated reality of sexting cases across the country.
None of the images were posted to the Internet, and there was no evidence of coercion or bullying, LeDoux said. Some children were involved in some way in the exchanges of explicit photos.
An unknown of students were suspended when the scandal broke in November, and the high school football team forfeited its last game of the season because players were involved. Police said students used a cellphone app that hid the photos. Some students could have faced charges that would have required them to register as sex offenders.
The possession of explicit photos of minors is a felony in Colorado, which, like many states, has not updated laws intended to fight adult exploitation of children for the smartphone age. A total of about 1, students attend Canon City High.
He also said the Fremont County School District would offer education about sexting to both students and their parents. The law in Colorado and many other states considers explicit photos of minors to be child pornography and requires school employees to contact police the moment they learn of it. Some teens, parents and legal experts say law enforcement should adapt to the reality that sexting is increasingly common among teens — about 28 percent of them, according to a recent study by Jeff Temple, an associate professor and psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Temple maintains that sexting is a new form of flirting and mostly happens between teens who are in a relationship or want to be. The behavior is best addressed by parents talking to their children about healthy relationships and boundaries, he said. Last year in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a boyfriend and girlfriend who exchanged nude selfies at 16 were charged as adults, with felony sexual exploitation of a minor.
Their charges were reduced to misdemeanors following an uproar. As many as 20 students at another school were suspended for either sending or watching the video. In Greenbrier, Tennessee, 16 students were charged last month with sexual exploitation of a minor after exchanging explicit photos on their cellphones.
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Denver Broncos. Top Spots. Katie Johnston reports. Denver News.
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