Alan C. Posted February 28, 2013 Posted February 28, 2013 Linden student details sting to catch suspected thieving teacher The Linden High School sophomore who videotaped a teacher apparently stealing money from student backpacks said she knew she had to do something. Justine Betti said students had noticed things missing from their backpacks in gym class all year. She decided to hide inside a locker to see if she could find the culprit. She did not expect it to be her teacher. "After all the kids left she stayed in there and went through people's backpacks," Justine said, adding, "I saw her take money and then I told people and nobody believed me." Betti decided she needed proof. "Something needed to be done. Like, that's not ok." On Wednesday, February 13, she hid in a locker a second time, holding a phone video camera, with another camera propped up in a second locker. "I didn't want to believe that she would do something like that because she was so nice, but then she did it," Betti said. Both cameras show her teacher going through backpacks, with one clearly showing what appears to be money being taken from a pink backpack. "I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I got this on video and I couldn't believe that I got it and I kept watching it over and over," she said. Betti and several friends took the video to the principal. "He said that he'll investigate it and he told us to delete the video but I had already sent it to my dad." The teacher has been placed on administrative leave and both the Linden School District and the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department are investigating. No criminal charges have yet been filed. That decision will be up to the district attorney.
Libertus Posted March 1, 2013 Posted March 1, 2013 'Placed on administrative leave'... so now she gets paid AND doesn't have to work. The teacher AND the principal should be fired immediately. No private sector school would ever get away with something like that. And one more thing, how come the lockers don't have locks?
Magnus Posted March 1, 2013 Posted March 1, 2013 Aggressors HATE recordings. I remember in the early days of the Internet coming across a series of videos (taken by an ex-cop) of people getting arrested. The cops would actually stop arresting the suspect just to confront the videographer. You could see the cops' instant hostility. Their attitude toward the suspect they were arresting was a kind of mild interest, but the videographer? They were enraged at him! There are "laws" in a lot of states against surreptitious audio recordings, even sometimes prohibiting recording a conversation that you are participating in.
Libertus Posted March 1, 2013 Posted March 1, 2013 "Interfering with a citizen's recording' should be a crime, similar to "interfering with a 911 call". But then again, there already is a law against assault, and police ignores that, too.
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