Cop denies harassing Windsor high school girl during Internet safety assembly

[Honey]

Students and parents at Windsor High School are outraged after a Wyoming police officer doing an Internet safety presentation at the school scrutinized individual students’ MySpace pages, calling the students “slutty” and saying photos on their sites invited sexual predators.

The officer, John F. Gay III of the Cheyenne Police Department, picked out six or seven Windsor High School students’ MySpace page and began to criticize photos, comments and other content until one student left the room crying
“He told the entire student body that he had shared her info with a sexual predator in prison,” said Ty Nordic, whose daughter Shaylah Nordic’s MySpace page was put on display.

Nordic said Gay then told the student body that the predator said he would masturbate to her picture.
Shaylah Nordic then left the room as Gay pulled up her phone number and called
her on stage to demonstrate how easy it was to get a hold of contact information via the Internet.
“He told about a story about a girl in another state who was tracked through MySpace who was raped and shot and then said Shaylah’s page is inviting people to do the exact same things to her,” Nordic said.
Windsor High School Principal Rick Porter said today that he was aware of what the speaker was going to talk about and that he would likely use a couple My Space pages of Windsor High School students as an example.

Porter said he had no idea that Gay was going to make his presentation in the manner he did or use the language he is accused of using.
“I was very disappointed,” Porter said. “I never heard him say things like that before.”
Gay could not be reached for comment.
April Rigg, a Windsor High senior, said her MySpace page was also put on display, though she was not at the assembly.
“Me and my best friend are in a lot of those pictures. We have our arms around each other and he was saying that I was touching her,” Rigg said other students told her. “That just sucks because I don’t want people to get the wrong impression of me.”

See Thursday's Coloradoan for more and www.coloradoan.com for updates.

Parents outraged after cop uses Windsor High School students' MySpace pages for Internet safety assembly | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan,

[DeChayz]

Well her pictures probably WERE slutty.

[A*O]

Exactly. I do not understand why so many people think they can post stuff on Myspace they wouldn't dream of posting elsewhere. I can't decide if it's extreme narcissism or stupidity.

[McJag]

If they found talking about it upsetting,think how upset they would be if the convict showed up at their house!

[A*O]

My kids' school runs these "Internets For Idiot Parents" info sessions and it's very scary how many people have NO CLUE about what their kids (a) have access to and (b) what they get up to.

[Rica]

The truth hurts, dont it?

[dolem]

The fact the a police officer actually took a teen's myspace page and sent it to a sexual predator and admitted it is totally fucked up!

Myspace and facebook are strange. I'm on both, but I don't understand the allure to post everything about your life. My pages are private for this very reason.

[Rica]

I doubt he actually did that, probably said it as a scare tactic.

[crumpet]

Well, he has experience with this and maybe girls do need to stop and think about the message they send when they advertise themselves sexually and suggestively in an attempt to be 'hot' and desired. When you are on the web, anyone can see you, including perpetrators.

Girls want to look and act trashy but don't want people to think they are trashy. Too bad.

[dolem]

I agree that a lot of teens out there seem to think it's okay to post super slutty pictures of themselves online. It's weird, I don't understand it. I guess I'm getting old!!

Still, if the police officer did what they are saying he did, it's wrong. I also think it's wrong to use specific examples of people from that school during an assembly. I think that's probably somewhat invasion of privacy (even though the girls put that stuff out there). He could have easily used other profiles to make his point.

[Rica]

But do you think it would have made them understand how fucked up the way they are acting, if he used someone elses profile???? as if they would pay attention!

[western]

Originally Posted by Rica

But do you think it would have made them understand how fucked up the way they are acting, if he used someone elses profile???? as if they would pay attention!

Exactly, it wouldn't have made near the impact it has if he used strangers profiles. Unfortunately it seems to have gone the other route putting more focus on "how dare he do that" instead of "how freaking stupid are these kids & their parents". If he can come along and view their MySpace pages, anyone can. At the very least set them to private and have them viewable only by friends. Though that only keeps out the ones who don't care enough to find a backdoor in.

I also don't think the cop showed the profile to an inmate. He either saw an inmate viewing that profile or using another profile for gratification and uses it as an example in his talks, just filling in the name of whatever student he's chosen.