MERCER COUNTY, WV (WOAY)- On February 13th, Christopher Butler, a Princeton High School resource officer, was charged with two counts of sexual abuse and neglect of a child.
These charges come out just over a week after the former Princeton wrestling coach, Travis Francisco, was arrested on several charges of sexual intercourse, sexual intrusion, or sexual contact against students by a school employee.
At the time, the superintendent of Mercer County Schools was unavailable to speak on the matter. We asked him about what the school did during these situations, and he said they have zero tolerance for acts like this.
“You know, the wrestling coach was our employee. We terminated that employee immediately. Once we got information about the investigation, we removed them, and then the board terminated the employee,” explained Ed Toman, Superintendent of Mercer County Schools. “With the resource officer, that was a year ago. Princeton PD has not been in our school system. Along with Mike Webb, the city manager, we decided to remove the Princeton PD out of the high school to get things together, get things working out, and make sure that we get all that inappropriate activity by that officer behind us.”
He said the state department gave the school a document about grooming to educate their employees on what to look out for.
According to Toman, they have gone over it with his staff three times in the past two years and also have had training with them.
“We did training the other day with our personnel director, Dr. Kristal Filipek did it with our bus drivers,” said Toman. “You know, since I’ve been here in Mercer County for the last four years, you know, there are some inappropriate things that happen, but we get them out of our system to take care of our kids.”
This is a developing story, and we’ll update you as we hear more.
View original story here: In just over a week, there has been two different cases of sexual abuse of a child in Princeton High School
