California high school year book investigated for 'child pornography'

[News_Editor]

California high school year book investigated for 'child pornography'

2011-06-18 11:02:28 GMT+7 (ICT)

SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) -- A California high school yearbook has been recalled as police are investigating a photo that could be considered child pornography, local media reported on Friday.

Sheriff deputies in Big Bear have launched an investigation into Big Bear High School's 2011 yearbook after a photograph showing a 17-year-old boy with his hand inside the clothing of a 15-year-old girl was discovered in the publication, the San Bernardino County Sun reported.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said the involved people were in the background of a photograph taken at a dance but noted that they were not the intended focus of the photograph. "When the photos were scanned and proofed by an adviser, they must have missed the photo," Bachman told the media outlet, as most of the high school students have already returned their yearbooks.

Furthermore, the Sheriff's Department warned that anyone possessing the photograph should turn in the photographs to school staff or the Sheriff's Department or risk potential criminal charges involving possession of child pornography.

Those threats angered some parents and other locals who said police took it too far, and others who said the photo does not show a sexual act but merely suggests it. "I'm very angry. I know a lot of the kids that were threatened, I coach football up here. And a lot of them were very upset with the threats," Donald Souza, a parent of one of the students, told KABC-TV.

According to federal child exploitation laws, child pornography is defined by law as the visual depiction of a person under the age of 18 engaged in sexually explicit conduct. This means that any image of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct is illegal contraband.

Notably, the legal definition of sexually explicit conduct does not require that an image depict a child engaging in sexual activity. A picture of a naked child may constitute illegal child pornography if it is sufficiently sexually suggestive

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