Phoenix teacher accused of showing porn could face charges
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Officials say a Phoenix high school photography teacher who was looking at porn in class and inadvertently projected it onto a screen could face criminal charges.
Forrest Martin resigned Wednesday from the staff of Arcadia High School where he had worked for five years.
Sgt. Tommy Thompson said Phoenix Police want the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to consider charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and providing obscene materials to a minor.
Students in Martin's photography complained after the class projector began displaying pornography on Monday. Martin told authorities he was unaware his computer was hooked up to the projector.
Teenagers in the classroom said they saw six video clips of what one student described as, "torture porn, of like girls being tied up."
One student, who did not want to be identified, said the teacher had connected his personal computer to a projector screen for a photography lesson.
He then assigned half the class to grab cameras and take pictures; the remaining students had an in-class assignment.
That’s when the student said the teacher began viewing the videos.
"He forgot the projector screen was turned on and he started watching porn and we were all just like sitting there shocked that he was watching this in front of the class," the student said. "He was just all into it, I don’t even think he was paying attention to us, he was just all in his computer."
The student said the incident wasn't as much offensive as it was unnerving.
"I was just creeped out that a teacher that I have known from the beginning of the year could have been watching this the whole time we were in class," the student told us. "That’s just gross, he’ll watch it in front of kids in that school when he’s supposed to be teaching.”
"Just like knowing that he watched that in front of everybody it’s… I wouldn’t want him near me," the student said.
Phoenix police officials said the campus’ school resource officer is writing a report, which will be sent to detectives in the Department’s Family Investigations Bureau.
They will conduct their own investigation and if they think the case merits charges, they said they will pass it up to the County Attorney’s Office.
Meanwhile, the letter Arcadia High School sent home to parents states that "the teacher was placed immediately on administrative leave and the matter was referred to the district office for a full investigation… We have begun our efforts to find a highly qualified teacher replacement, and are determined to move our Photography Program in a positive direction."
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