While no criminal charges have been leveled against the former Jasper Middle School resource officer who has resigned amid an investigation into phone texts between him and two students, the release Wednesday of a police report spells out the details of what investigators found.
The officer resigned last month amid an internal investigation into texts he sent to two students, aged 10 and 14, officials said on Tuesday. Marion County Sheriff Ronnie "Bo" Burnett said then that the texts in question contained "nothing inappropriate," but that he still removed him from his post at the school and offered him a job as a road deputy that the SRO declined and then resigned.
Burnett said Wednesday that he wanted to clarify that he was not defending any of the officer's actions, while reiterating that he had not crossed lines that could result in charges. Attempts this week to reach the former SRO have been unsuccessful.
The SRO, who the Times Free Press has not named since he hasn't been charged with a crime, was the subject of an investigation that started Sept. 4 when a Marion County detective got information that the SRO had been communicating with a juvenile student at Jasper Middle School.
According to a report filed by Detective Matt Blansett, he was contacted Sept. 4 and told that the SRO had been communicating with a 10-year-old girl at the school and that her parents didn't know how to deal with the situation. The parents were told to come to the sheriff's office if they wanted to file a complaint, which they did a few days later.
The parents said their daughter had been communicating with the SRO via text messages without their knowledge, the report states. The texts started on Aug. 22 and had continued until the texts were discovered and the SRO was blocked from their child's phone, the report states.
The parents were not acquainted with the SRO until the current school year. The girl's mother said they "thought a lot" of the way the SRO had helped their daughter "through some hard times as her middle school career began," the report states.
"Once [the mother] discovered the text messages she became very uncomfortable with the contact between the two. Especially when communication was happening after 9 p.m. at night," the report states. The mother told authorities the SRO had bought gifts for the 10-year-old and brought them to school to give to her.
Detectives were also told at this point in the investigation that the SRO purchased a cell phone for another female student at the school and had been texting her, the report states.
The girl's parents told investigators that the SRO asked to give their daughter a new phone to replace her current one and the girl's mother "advised [the SRO] and his wife multiple times for them to not give [the girl] a phone."
The communications between the parents and the SRO were also turned over to police. The messages between the girl and SRO began at the beginning of 2019 and continued until spring when the girl blocked the SRO from her phone, the report states.
The SRO was interviewed Sept. 10 and told detectives that he "was close friends with both girls and their families. Although interviews with [both sets of] parents contradicted this statement," the report states. "He stated that he treated the juveniles as if they were his own kids."
The SRO felt he'd done nothing wrong because "none of the messages had any criminal intent and they were just general conversations," the report states. The SRO told investigators he didn't believe he'd communicated with any other juveniles girls since he'd been working at the school.
The report ends with the remark that the SRO had been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the investigation which resulted in no charges.
Burnett said Tuesday that a new, female SRO was on duty now at Jasper Middle School.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.