A 16-year-old boy was charged with raping his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend inside Churchland High during school hours.
The entire attack was caught on tape police say, but administrators never knew because they weren't watching the cameras.
Thirty-three-year-old Ashley Morris is one of the NewsChannel 3 viewers who contacted us during our investigation, wanting to speak out because she has been in the same situation.
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At 14-years-old, she was victimized by her ex-boyfriend when she was in school in Virginia Beach.
“We broke up; he was leaving dead roses in my locker, I had a gun put to me and while we were dating, I was raped by him on multiple occasions. It does happen in the schools,” says Morris.
She says she did go to administration officials for help, but there was very little they could do.
“It’s hard to fight. It’s hard to get help in the school system with things like this. Sometimes, I was scared, because the more I would say something, the more escalated things would become,” says Morris.
But in the Portsmouth case, there was video caught by school cameras.
Police are using it as evidence in their case against the boy. So how many other school districts around Hampton Roads have surveillance systems monitoring for crimes on campus?
NewsChannel 3 found that in all seven cities, cameras can be found in every middle and high school.
Two districts that serve as good examples are Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. They have security guards in front of the cameras at all times, unless there is a major incident going on where they need more manpower.
We also found Hampton has a similar policy.
But in Newport News, Suffolk, Norfolk and Portsmouth, school staff members only sporadically watch the cameras; instead, they perform more physical patrols around the hallways.
If they miss something, they can go back and rewind the tape.
In Suffolk, though, the recordings are only kept for 10 days.
So if something isn't immediately reported, kids and parents are out of luck.
“It can be your child; it might be your child next time,” says Morris.
