Football Game Pictures
Teenage Girl Discovers Pervert
By Daniel Muniz

13-year-old Jocelyn was enjoying a high school football game at Farris Stadium of the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio Texas when she began to notice something really odd. While seated in the stands, she observed a man in his mid thirties who was definitely concentrating on something else other than on the game.

Robert Thompson, age 35, had taken his bulky digital camera with him to this high school event. Instead snapping pictures of the football action, he conspicuously zoomed his lens towards the teenage girls around him. However he was not taking casual photographs but focusing in on the privates’ of the young teenagers.

After being suspicious of Thompson’s creepy behavior and of his intent, Jocelyn told her mother who had accompanied her to the game. Jocelyn’s mother verified her daughter’s concerns when she scrutinized where this man kept pointing his camera at and then she immediately informed the police who were at the game.

Police officers took a look at the stored pictures inside Thompson’s digital camera and found a plethora of photographs that were mostly centered on the private areas of the girls who were in the stands of the football stadium. The cops arrested the pervert and then searched his car.

What they found inside Thompson’s car startled but confirmed the hunches of the police.

The cops discovered additional provocative photographs of teenage girls. Apparently Thompson had been doing this sort of thing for a while and the football game was another attempt for him to add to his collection.

The police also found a knife and rope along with stuffed animals. On the surface such items may appear innocuous since anyone may have them inside their own vehicles but Thompson’s behavior of photographing young girls’ private areas suggested a more malicious purpose. But this is what definitely raised the red flags:

Now it doesn’t take much to put two and two together in this picture. What Thompson did was disturbing although he doesn’t have any record of harming anyone. But even if he hasn’t hurt someone, his actions do demonstrate a proclivity to do something to someone, especially when the right moment arises.

Recently updated Texas laws (and there are plenty of similar laws in other states) allowed the police to arrest this guy because he didn’t have permission to photograph the bodies of the teenage girls. It is legal to taken pictures of people in public but the teeth of the state laws expressly forbid such illicit pictures if they are sexual in nature with the purpose to arouse the senses.

The law itself is vague which gives it its strength as well as its weakness and it will be up to the court system to determine the extent of its reach.

In this situation, there are plenty of possible outcomes.

First, the cops could have told the girl’s mother to mind her own business. Or perhaps when the police confronted Thompson, they could have told him to get lost or have him permanently delete every image on his camera before leaving the football stadium.

But the police had a hunch and pursued it and I am personally grateful for it.

Now at least law enforcement has some sort of record of Thompson’s suspicious behavior. And perhaps the confrontation by the cops and the experience of the arrest will give this man a warning that such conduct is not acceptable in our society; thus it may an incentive for him to stop it before it gets out of hand (or at least seek treatment).

Naturally, civil libertarians will denounce this incident as an intrusion by law enforcement.

And I do agree that vague legislation does have the unforeseen opportunity to turn into expansive unwieldy laws in which everyone can become a criminal regardless of the circumstances. Laws have to be enforced in a way that avoid the harassment of ordinary citizens and that is what makes a case like this “black and white” from one perspective and “hazy” from another.

So where is this proper balance so that enforcement of a law can be effective without trampling over unintended bystanders?

I really do not know because like many people, I want to have things both ways. That is, having laws like this one in Texas in which the police can act on a hunch to apprehend a pervert, especially when it comes to protecting minors. But I also don’t want people to be needlessly harassed in which anyone can be interpreted as being a criminal.

In summary, the local police did a great job with their insight and perspective.

In addition, the local media also did an excellent job in reporting this story. They did not sensationalize it but instead they put the essence of this creepy report in its proper perspective so that the public can be informed that this kind of behavior does go on.

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