Introduction
“New Patterns of Police Abuse”
Police sexual abuse of women includes a disturbing pattern of police officer exploitation of teenage girls. The majority of these cases, moreover, involve girls enrolled in police-sponsored Explorer programs designed to give teens an understanding of police work.
Walker, S. & Tribeck, D. (June 2013). Police Sexual Abuse of Teenage Girls: A 2003 Update on “Driving While Female.” The University of Nebraska at Omaha Department of Criminal Justice .
The report brought national attention to police sexual abuse occurring in police/community-sponsored programs. However, the betrayal of trust exemplified by the police actions was not new, and the victims and police sexual aggressors came from all genders. The victims in this PSM type are both males and females, and male and female police sexual aggressors officers are the sexual predators. And, police sexual abuse in police/community-sponsored programs is not confined to Police Explorer Programs . The programs developed under the umbrella of “community policing ” have been hijacked by a minority of police sexual aggressors. Saying that it is a minority offers little solace to the victims and their families.
My examination of newspaper articles from 2009 to 2015 found 72 cases of police sexual abuse involving teenage girls and boys in these community policing endeavors, thirty-one of the cases involved teenagers in the Police Explorer Program . The co-ed program in this type offers a variety of worksite-based educational programs for young people between the ages of 14 and 20 and is designed to prepare them for responsible and productive adult lives.
The programs are sponsored by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The programs provide experience in police-related activities such as criminal investigation, firearms, and traffic control and community service. Ride-alongs are a part of most Police Explorer Programs . The goal is for young adults to obtain a personal awareness of the criminal justice system through training; practical experience, competition, and other Criminal Justice related activities—a laudable goal. Unfortunately, there is a darker and tragic side to these programs that expands the vulnerable victim’s pool for police sexual aggressors, in effect putting the Fox in the Henhouse , a police child molester loose among their prey. It is beyond time to reexamine the use of police officers in public schools and recognize the problems involved and take steps to remediate the problems or end the programs.
Police in Public Schools
An unknown number of sexual aggressors with the inclination to molest children choose police work for the known opportunities for sexual abuse. The previous two chapters made that clear. Some seek assignments to positions in schools. Public sworn police officers have always responded to calls for service and emergencies in schools. They make arrests on school property; provide traffic and security services during sporting events and other large events. However, in recent years, several events combined to increase the number, nature, and responsibilities of public sworn officers in schools. Those events include media-sensationalized school shootings, school safety as a political issue, criminalization of school discipline, and a zero-tolerance policy of weapons, alcohol, and drugs in schools. The events led to increased federal funding for public police in schools, providing the stimulus for more police assignments in schools. However, armed LEOs create the possibility of the civil rights violations of students by poorly vetted and poorly trained LEOs with the inclination for sexual misconduct and introduce more minors into the juvenile justice pipeline (Theriot and Cuellar 2016). Public sworn officers are now assigned to schools on a more permanent basis, and many public school districts from elementary to college/university have established separate police departments.
In addition to public paid police officers, private security officers are employed by elementary, middle, and high schools, particularly in urban areas, to oversee or monitor the access and egress school patterns. They perform tasks inside the schools once performed by student monitors and teachers. Private security guards provide protection and traffic responsibilities at sporting events and other functions as assigned by the school. These private employees are without general arrest powers and are armed with non-lethal weapons. On occasion, they are non-sworn members of a school police department. For example, the second largest US school police department, Los Angeles (CA) United School District Police Department, has 410 sworn police officers and 101 non-sworn school safety officers. The sworn police officers are assigned to the school’s campus and patrol the surrounding area. The school safety officers are assigned to the school campus and parking enforcement.
Most of the nations’ school police departments evolved from safety or security school agencies without sworn officers. School safety is a big industry. In 2008, there were 250 police departments operated by public school districts in the United States (DOJ, July 2011). These special district police departments employed nearly 5000 sworn law enforcement officers. The largest public school district police department is the Philadelphia School District Police Department with 450 sworn officers.
Special district police as sworn public law enforcement officers and experience the same opportunities for police sexual abuse as all law enforcement officers do, just in a different setting. Public school police have become more militarized, mimicking a development in other US police departments. According to an AP report appearing in the Guardian , twenty-six US school districts participated in the free military surplus gear program and acquired mine-resistant armored [sic] vehicles, grenade launchers, and M16 rifles. Several school police spokespersons quoted in the article said the military equipment was needed in the event of a school shooting. Maybe? However, school shootings, contrary to media presentations and politicians are rare events, and school violence has dropped dramatically since 1993 (Theriot and Cuellar 2016). The increase of police in schools flies in the face of the available evidence that suggests that the largest threat of law enforcement sexual misconduct with minors comes from School Resource Officers and other officers assigned to schools or joint police/community-sponsored programs .
School Resource Officers—SROs
In addition to the increase in special district school police departments, there has been an exponential increase in School Resource Officers (SROs ) from the local police or sheriff’s agencies assigned to elementary, middle, and high schools. An SRO is a sworn law enforcement officer with general arrest powers assigned to an elementary, middle, or high school as their primary duties during the school year. As defined in the 1968 Omnibus Crime Bill, a SRO is “a career law enforcement officer with sworn authority deployed in community-oriented policing, and assigned by the employing police department or agency to work in collaboration with school and community-based organizations” (Theriot and Cuellar 2016: 365—emphasis added). These sworn officers are, in theory, assigned the goal of improving the safety of students and school personnel. They are employed by the law enforcement agency, not the school. However, there are inherent problems with this arrangement.
The assignment to the school with its bureaucratic administrative structure and employment by a law enforcement agency with its bureaucratic administrative structure is problematic for the officer, the school principal, and the agency chief or sheriff. SROs exist in two worlds, employed by a law enforcement agency and a part of the school’s working staff under the immediate supervision of the school principal. Among the problems created by this arrangement are that the SRO and the school administrator often do not have a clear understanding of their roles, and the success of the relationship is determined by how the local police agency defines the “job” (Theriot and Cuellar 2016).
Furthermore, police officers typically see themselves as crime fighters, not “babysitters.” This complicates the assignment and creates a punishment orientation to acts once considered a minor child or teenage peccadillos. Even more problematic, the agency or the police officers may not view the SRO assignment as a desirable assignment, leading to assignment as an SRO as punishment and placing the police slacker in a real or perceived low-risk setting with an especially vulnerable population (personal experience and interviews with working and former police officers). Specialized units in police agencies have always been used as a garbage can for officers who do not function well on patrol work. In order to be successful, SROs must receive specialized training preparing them to work with children in schools effectively. Oftentimes, this does not happen. And, there must be adequate funding for SRO programs. Most programs in existence today rely on federal grants that last for three years. Many SRO programs disappear after federal dollars are cut back.
Even more troubling are questions about the success of SROs in increasing safety and security in the school. Putting SROs in schools has unintended consequences. Studies suggest SROs increase the risk of student resistance to authority and antisocial behavior and erode the personal relationships between students and teachers, conceding power to SROs erects barriers to classroom relationships (Theriot and Cuellar 2016).
How Successful Are School Resource Officer Programs?
Police officers in schools are a part of the increased interest in the latest buzzword in police operations—community-oriented policing. The COP movement began in the 1950s but did not take hold in American public schools until the social media furor surrounding the school shootings of the 1990s, culminating with the Columbine Massacre on April 20, 1999. Then, in December 2012, the deadliest school shooting in US history occurred in Sandy Hook Elementary School when one assassin killed 20 young children and a security guard before killing himself. In response, the Office of Community Policing Services (COPS ) awarded nearly 45 million dollars to hire 356 SROs for the 2013 fiscal year. SRO programs are crisis-driven and perceived to be common-sense solutions to increasing school safety and reducing school violence, leading to the question: How successful are they? The answer to that question is not forthcoming.
Thompson and Alvarez (2012) report that in Colorado the year before the Columbine Massacre in 1999, the reported rates of violent student crime fell drastically. Following the massacre and the infusion of federal monies for the hiring of SROs, the national student to School Resource Officer rate rose dramatically as did the violent school crime rate until 2003. In 2003, budget cuts increased the student to School Resource Officer ratio, and the student crime rate dropped. They concluded there was no evidence that the presence of resource officers contributed to the decline in student reported crime. They also reported that a national longitudinal study compared the levels of student crime in 470 schools matching schools with SROs and those without SROs. The study found no measurable decline in student crime or improvements in student behavior between the schools with SROs and those without SROs.
Thompson and Alvarez (2012) reported some disturbing findings. Their evidence suggests that the presence of SROs might harm students and interfere with schooling. They suggested that SROs spend the majority of their time needlessly applying law enforcement solutions to what are traditional school discipline issues (swearing, fighting, disorderly conduct). They also found teachers and administrators relegate school discipline issues to School Resource Officers . The disturbing incidents of police sexual misconduct by SROs must also be considered in any examination of the program’s success.
SRO Sexual Misconduct
There is no official data collected on sexual misconduct in joint police/community-sponsored programs. The Learning for Life or the Boy Scouts of America—sponsors—does not collect data on Police Explorers sexual abuse. Neither does the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children . The National Association of School Resources Officers does not collect data on SRO sexual abuse.
There is a dearth of scientific research on police sexual misconduct in the school setting. However, Stinson and Watkins (2013), in their study of SROs arrested for criminal offenses, found the nature of police misconduct by school and non-school police officers is dissimilar. Non-school police officers were significantly more likely to be arrested for violence-related offenses, whereas SROs were more likely to be arrested for sex-related offenses. Sixty-two percent of the SROs crimes were sex-related. The SRO victims were most likely to be teenage girls enrolled in the schools the SROs were assigned to or patrolled—56%. The offenses ranged from making sexually explicit remarks to direct sexual contact.
The available evidence demonstrates that the problem of police sexual abuse in law enforcement assignments and other police/community-sponsored programs is more complex and varied than previously identified. Contrary to what the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO, 2012) states “Child welfare on campus is not compromised by school resource officers , but at risk without them,” it appears that an unknown number of students are put at risk of sexual exploitation by School Resource Officers and other police-community-sponsored programs involving minors. The Illustrative Examples that follow demonstrate the need for a reexamination of these programs.
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LAPD Deputy Chief David Kalish—Police Explorers Supervisor
In 2000, David Kalish , the openly gay, former board member of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, and LAPD officer with 25 years on the job was appointed to deputy chief in charge of the LAPD’s Operations-West Bureau. According to Police Chief Bernard Parks, Kalish was “specifically selected for the critical position because of his intellect, wisdom, experience, and his incredibly high level of integrity” (LAPD News Release, September 12, 2000). His “incredibly high level of integrity” would be put in jeopardy from accusations of on- and off-duty sexual molestation of young boys in the LAPD’s Police Explorer Program . The alleged secrets in his past became public when he applied for the vacant chief of police position.
Deputy Chief David Kalish was a semifinalist for the position of LAPD Chief of Police after LAPD Police Chief Bernard Parks was forced from office. Kalish was not selected, but the publicity triggered the memory of sexual abuse in one of his victims and compelled him to register a complaint. The allegation was severe but old. In October 2002, a Santa Clara, California man claimed Kalish harassed and sexually assaulted him when he was in the 1970s LAPD Police Explorer’s Program (Winton and Blankstein, March 26, 2003). Then in July 2003, a second complaint alleged that when Kalish was the supervisor of the department’s Police Explorer program he had “sexually molested, harassed, assaulted, fondled and coerced” a male youth in the Explorer’s program from 1974 to 1979 (Winton and Blankstein, July 4, 2003). Before the investigation ended, a third complainant would come forward with additional allegations of sexual abuse. The newly appointed LAPD Chief of Police was forced to take action.
William Bratton , the former NYPD Police Commissioner, was selected for the chief’s position. One of Bratton’s first actions was to place Kalish on paid leave, following a 5-month investigation into allegations he molested a youth in the Police Explorer program in the 1970s. The department investigation launched by Chief Bratton found substance to the allegations and was forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for possible criminal charges. The length of time between the alleged acts and the filing of complaints raised serious legal questions.
The possibility of criminal prosecution for these alleged acts of sexual abuse of minors was barred by a US Supreme Court decision declaring a California law that allowed prosecutors to file new charges on old incidents of sexual abuse unconstitutional. The allegations against Kalish occurred in the 1970s, but the California law extended the 20-year statute of limitations in cases where there were serious sexual misconduct and corroborating evidence. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office demurred on filing charges while soliciting legal advice.
The possible criminal prosecution of LAPD Deputy Chief David Kalish sputtered to an inglorious ending on November 7, 2003. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office issued a three-page memorandum saying there was sufficient evidence to charge Kalish with molesting two Police Explorers but the legal deadlines for prosecution had passed (Winton and Blankstein, November 7, 2003). In effect, Kalish was believed guilty, but the prosecutor was unable to charge. The District Attorney’s Office did not stop there. It added damaging support for the allegations. The memo gave brief descriptions of the incidents. The memo reported “Kalish engaged in oral copulation and masturbation with an Explorer Scout in the LAPD Devonshire Division Explorer program when the victim aged 15-17.”
Furthermore, he engaged in sexual acts on a second Explorer from 1977 to 1979. Their findings, according to the memo, were based on reports and witness statements from the LAPD Internal Affairs Division and testimony before a Los Angeles County Grand Jury. Disappointed at the lack of criminal charges, the two victims filed civil suits against the city, but the California Supreme Court held that they had waited too long to file suit. Kalish retired from the LAPD with full benefits, nearly $10,000 a month, and retaining the right to carry a concealed weapon, police identification card, and a retirement badge.
San Bernardino County, California Sheriff’s Office—Two Police Explorer Supervisors-One a Former Police Explorer
The most evil bastard ever to wear a badge….What you really are, Nathan Gastineau is a predator of the worst kind. A predator with a badge. (Fowler, March 21, 2014)
The words of the father of a 16-year-old female victim to former San Bernardino Deputy Sheriff (SBSO) Nathan Gastineau after he was found guilty of 16 counts relating to having sexual intercourse as well as performing lewd acts with a minor. He was also found guilty of one count of possessing child pornography —videos of the sexual encounters. His actions are particularly disturbing because the 10-year veteran deputy sheriff had been a Police Explorer with the SBSO before he became a deputy (Tenorio, January 5, 2012).
Deputy Gastineau was the supervisor of the minor’s Highland-based Police Explorer post when he allegedly began having on- and off-duty sex with the minor. The sex molestation charges became known when the SBSO, responded to a complaint, source not identified, that Deputy Gastineau was having sex with a girl in the Police Explorer program he supervised. At one point an investigator, using the girl’s cell phone sent Gastineau text messages and received confirmation of the illicit affair. He was called in for an interview. Gastineau, at first, said the girl was lying. When presented with the evidence—text messages—he admitted the sexual relationship, adding that it was consensual. There is only one encounter, he insisted. The girl gave contradictory information, saying that the two had sex, beginning in November 2010, six times before she was 16 years old and continued at least twice a week until mid-April 2011. She said Gastineau had oral sex with her at least once in his patrol car on a ride-along. The police executed search warrants on his home and work locker and found videos of the two having sex, confirming the deputy had, indeed, had sex with the girl when she was 15 years old.
In January 2014, former Deputy Nathan Gastineau went on trial in San Bernardino Superior Court. At the end of the three-week trial, the jury took three hours to find him guilty of sixteen counts of unlawful sex with the teenaged Explorer and one count of possessing child pornography . He received the maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. The Gastineau complaints were not the only the problems the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office had with their Explorer program.
Two weeks after Deputy Gastineau’s arrest another SBSO Police Explorer supervisor was arrested for allegedly having sex with a female in the Explorer post he supervised. San Bernardino Deputy Anthony Benjamin , a five-year veteran of the SBSO, was charged with two counts of oral copulation with an underage girl (Tenorio, June 10, 2011). The 17-year-old female was in Deputy Benjamin’s Victorville Police Explorer’s post. His arrest came hours after an anonymous tip. Following the second arrest, Sheriff Rod Hoops declared it was a “sad day for the department” and suspended the Police Explorer program for 60 days to conduct a thorough review of the program. The sheriff added that the Explorer program was a key component of the department’s outreach agenda with 245 Explorers at 15 stations. Many current officers, including Deputy Gastineau, used the program as a springboard into careers in law enforcement. However, the Sheriff’s department acknowledged it needs to see if “there’s something we need to change to prevent this from happening and that the kids involved in the program are protected.”
Former deputy Benjamin accepted a plea deal and pleaded no contest to two felony counts of oral copulation of a person under 16. He was sentenced to 270 days in jail but did not have to register as a sex offender. After serving his sentence, he would serve three years of probation.
The sheriff’s department still has problems with the Police Explorer’s Program . In 2016, the coordinator of the Explorer program was accused of sexual misconduct with an underage girl participating in the program (Peleg, December 31, 2016). The accused had received the Commander’s Award for his role in the Explorer’s program in 2015.
Caldwell, Idaho Ruben Delgadillo—School Resource Officer (SRO)
Caldwell, Idaho is the county seat of Canyon County, Idaho and is considered to be part of the Boise metropolitan area. The police department has 43 officers serving a population of around 46 thousand persons. Officer Ruben Delgadillo was a member of the Caldwell Police Department (CPD ) from 2005 until his resignation in late 2008. He resigned after being charged with lewd conduct with a child and sexual battery of a minor child under 16 or 17 years of age. Delgadillo’s victim was a 15-year-old boy he met and mentored while serving as the CPD’s School Resource Officer at a local high school.
According to court documents (Complaint—Nicholson V. Ruben Delgadillo et al. Case No. 12-470 U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho September 13, 2012), Delgadillo met his victim while serving as a member of the high school’s suspension board. The troubled freshman appeared before the board as a result of a school rule’s violation. After the hearing, Delgadillo met with the mother of the young boy and convinced her he could mentor the boy and change his disruptive behavior. The mother trusted Delgadillo because he was a police officer and an SRO assigned to work with children. Allegedly, the mentoring process consisted of “grooming “ the victim into sexual encounters.
The “grooming ” allegedly consisted of daily contact where the SRO would take the boy jogging or on ride-alongs in his police cruiser. Then, he would have the young victim spend the nights at his house and sleep in his bed. According to the Complaint, Delgadillo would sexually fondle the boy. The fondling allegedly progressed to sexual intercourse. This sexual abuse occurred dozens of times over a period of months, according to the Complaint. The abuse continued for months until the young victim reported it to the Idaho State Police, leading to Delgadillo’s arrest.
Delgadillo, at first, said the sex was consensual until the judge pointed out that sex with a minor is not legally possible. He pleaded guilty to felony injury to a child and was sentenced to 3–10 years in prison.
Tampa, Florida Brian Morales—School Resource Officer
Very disappointed in this officer because … “he was entrusted to be a positive influence in those [high school] individual lives.” (Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor quoted in Girona, December 19, 2013)
The Tampa, Florida Police Department (TPD ) has over 1000 police officers, 24 of them are School Resource Officers with three supervisors. One of them, Officer Brian Morales , was arrested and fired in 2013 for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old student at the high school where he was a School Resource Officer . According to the chief, SRO’s are tasked with “protecting the school and being a positive influence. The officers—male and female—ask to join the SRO program, and then they are carefully vetted” (Phillips, April 17, 2015). The chief said the department examines their background, experience, maturity, interest, and aptitude. There was nothing in Officer Brian Morales’s past to indicate that he was not suited to be a School Resource Officer . The veteran officer, married, and the father of four children had no disciplinary actions in his past. Why he ended up committing such a “disgusting act” (chief’s words) and becoming an embarrassment to the police agency cannot be explained, she said. The claim that the officer and his young victim had strong feelings is no excuse; a minor cannot legally consent to sex with an adult, the chief emphasized.
Although there are conflicting accounts of how the illicit relationship was discovered, it appears that the young victim went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). She was forced to reveal her affair to her mother, and the mother called the girl’s softball coach who called the police (Phillips, April 17, 2015).
Detectives went to the girl’s home and Morales’s home the day after they received the report. Morales was arrested for eight counts of felony sexual activity with a minor and fired. He had to be confined to a mental facility for several days because he threatened to hurt himself if the affair became public. The affair allegedly began on October 24, 2013, when the young girl checked herself out of school and went to Morales’s home where they had sex. They allegedly had sex at least eight times, at his home, her home and in his personal car, according to published reports (Phillips, April 17, 2015).
In April 2015, Brian Morales pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison. His prison sentence was to be followed by two years of house arrest and three years of probation.
Searcy, Arkansas PD, Hamilton Riley—School Resource Officer
He was a predator, and he was at the worst place of all. At a junior high school covered with a uniform, wearing a gun, and wearing a badge. It was a horrible situation. (Raff prosecuting attorney, March 2, 2011)
Prosecutor Raff was describing the actions of School Resource Officer Hamilton Riley of the Searcy, Arkansas Police Department . Riley was a seven-year veteran, 3 years as an SRO when the Arkansas State Police caught him climbing through the bedroom window of a 16-year-old female student (Anonymous, February 24, 2010). The student was from the high school where he was assigned. According to a published report, the girl and Riley had a longtime relationship, exchanging text messages since she was in the 8th grade.
The police acted quickly when the Complaint was made. The police department received a complaint that Riley was maintaining an inappropriate relationship with the young girl on a Monday and the State Police were notified. At 1 a.m. Tuesday, special agents from the state police were waiting for him in the girl’s bedroom when he climbed in the window. He was arrested for sexual contact with a 16-year-old and resigned at 7 a.m. the same day.
Riley pleaded guilty without comment in March 2011 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The sentencing judge said that he committed a heinous offense against a vulnerable child.
Bedford County, Virginia Sheriff’s Department-Deputy Earnest William Grubbs—School Resource Officer
The Bedford County Department of Social Services notified the sheriff’s office of allegations concerning Deputy Earnest William “E.W” Grubbs , the sheriff’s department’s School Resource Officer . The allegations consisted of an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl, a sophomore at the high school where SRO Grubbs worked. Deputy Grubbs had been with the sheriff’s department for eleven years and a School Resource Officer for seven years. The investigation by the Virginia State Police resulted in Grubbs’s arrest on October 19, 2011, for twelve counts of “taking indecent liberties with a child by a person in a custodial relationship” (Anonymous, October 20, 2011). Then, what was a strange case turned bizarre?
On Monday, November 7, 2011, the alleged 16-year-old victim was reported missing and in danger (Harvey, November 8, 2011). The Virginia State Police reported she could be with the now-fired SRO E.W. Grubbs . A BOLO was put out on the former officer, the missing teenager, and the Jeep Wrangler he was driving. Two days later, Grubbs used his debit card to purchase gas at a service station near Rush, Kentucky. Court records reveal the service station owner called the Kentucky State Police (KSP ) and reported the purchase and gave a description of the car and occupants along with the tag number. The nervous attendant stayed on the line and reported Grubbs’s car would not start, and Grubb’s was looking for someone to jump him off. A KSP lieutenant started on his way in an unmarked car. Before the KSP lieutenant arrived, someone gave Grubbs a jump, and he left the station. The lieutenant saw the Jeep leaving and called for backup. A few miles down the road, the troopers made a “felony stop,” and the bizarre odyssey was over.
Grubbs waived extradition back to Virginia to stand trial. The bizarre case had an odd ending. Following a plea negotiation, Grubbs pleaded guilty to five counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor (Thompson, December 21, 2012). He was not charged with the abduction of the girl. He was sentenced to 10 years, but the sentence was suspended, and he was free to go. The prosecutor said there were evidentiary problems with the case, and this was the best way to handle it. The father of the young girl upset with the disposition filed a civil suit against Grubbs and the sheriff’s office.
Dumfries, Virginia Joseph Ruhren—School Resource Officer
Former Dumfries, Virginia Police Officer Joseph Ruhren left police work and opened up a business—ice cream shop. He thought he was safe from the consequences of past sexual abuse behavior while he was a School Resource Officer . He was wrong (Anonymous, March 14, 2012).
Joseph Ruhren was a Dumfries, VA police officer from 1996 to 2004. He was also a volunteer wrestling coach and School Resource Officer for a Middle School from 1996 to 2001. In 2004, he resigned from the police department in good standing, according to the Town Manager. The ice cream shop, JoJos Original Soft Serve, became a spot where young people congregated. The small business owner became a self-proclaimed child advocate and hired mostly 15- and 16-year-old boys. He gave away free ice cream to honor roll students and hosted bully-free zones for the middle schools. His outward appearance and demeanor masked that he was a dangerous child molester . While he was in jail on prescription fraud charges, claiming addiction to sleeping pills, a 27-year-old man told the police and the FBI that Ruhren had sexually assaulted him when he was a child—12- to 16-year-old. These assaults allegedly occurred from 1996 to 2001 while Ruhrem was a School Resource Officer at his school.
Ruhrem was charged with 12 counts of forcible sodomy, four counts of indecent liberties, two counts of crimes against nature and one count of aggravated sexual battery. While Ruhrem was awaiting trial, a second victim came forward and claimed Officer Ruhren had sexually abused him from 1996 to 1998, allegedly beginning when he was 12 years old. Ruhrem was arrested on these charges, and his trial was postponed. A third victim reported that Ruhrem sexually assaulted him at his house between 1999 and 2002 when he was between 14 and seventeen years old. The final victim tally would go up to five before Ruhrem was put on trial.
In August 2014, Ruhrem was convicted of four counts of carnal knowledge of a minor, two counts of indecent liberties with a minor, one count of aggravated sexual assault and one count of forcible sodomy. The jury recommended a sentence of 74 years. The next month, September 2014, a jury found him guilty of six counts of taking liberties with a minor and four counts of forcible sodomy. The jury recommended four life sentences plus thirty years.
Conclusion
As the Illustrative Examples make clear law enforcement sexual misconduct in joint police and community-sponsored programs fits into the taxonomy of police sexual misconduct and is a serious problem. The rational choice model explains the LEO deviant behavior—PSM Causal Equation—Inclination + Opportunity + Real or Perceived Risk = Police Sexual Misconduct. The I.E.s also demonstrate that there is a need to reexamine the use of armed LEOs in the school setting. School safety is an important social issue, but so are child civil rights and the right to be free of sexual exploitation by a law enforcement officer. Clear memorandums of understandings between the school and the police organization are necessary, as are the proper selection, vetting, and training of the law enforcement officers. Finally, there must be a zero-tolerance policy against any sexual contact between the students and the LEO .