Northern California substitute teacher arrested after exposing buttocks to students, police say
A substitute teacher at a Northern California middle school was arrested Tuesday after he reportedly exposed his buttocks to students inside a classroom, police said.
The 32-year-old man from Connecticut was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure and annoying or molesting a child, according to the Anderson Police Department.
The incident was reported about noon Tuesday at Anderson Middle School in Shasta County. Investigators from the Police Department were called to the school for a report of a substitute teacher who allegedly exposed himself to a class of children.
Police said a vice principal at the school told investigators that two students came to her office and told her they could see the substitute teacher’s “bare buttocks and that his pants were partially down,” the department said in a social media post.
The vice principal went to the classroom and found the teacher “with his pants and underwear down around his mid-thigh area,” police said. The vice principal told the teacher he needed to leave the campus. She immediately escorted him off campus and contacted the Police Department.
Investigators questioned several students in the classroom and later obtained an arrest warrant for the substitute teacher. Police spent the afternoon and evening gathering information on the teacher’s whereabouts and arranged for his peaceful surrender about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Police Department, according to the post.
The teacher was arrested and booked at the Shasta County Jail. He was no longer listed in custody Wednesday afternoon, according to Shasta County Sheriff’s Office custody records. Shasta Superior Court online records did not show an arraignment had yet been scheduled for him.
In a statement released Wednesday, Cascade Union Elementary School District Superintendent Jason Provence said the sixth-grade students at Anderson Middle “endured a very intolerable situation during class,” the Redding Record Searchlight reported. The superintendent also said that district officials had “no prior knowledge of any inappropriate behavior,” and the district will offer counseling services for students.
The Police Department suspects the man arrested has worked as a substitute teacher at other schools in Shasta County.
Investigators asked anyone with relevant information about the teacher or this incident to call the Anderson Police Department through at 530-245-6526 and reference case number APD23-006035.
