Monday witnessed authorities arrest Mark Brendt, a former school teacher in South L.A., after an intensive investigation revealed several instances of lewd and lascivious acts that he allegedly committed with minors. While pleased that Brendt is behind bars, parents of the children attending the school in which he worked are outraged that they were not informed of these acts sooner. Police conducted a nearly one year investigation in which they were alerted to nearly 23 counts of sexual abuse between 2008 and 2010. However, parents are upset by the manor in which authorities handled the situation.
At the age of 61, Brendt is a former school teacher who worked at Miramonte Elementary School in South L.A. for approximately three decades. However, the school district in which he was associated with has no desire to recollect him ever having worked there. The culmination of a year-long investigation revealed 23 individual counts of alleged lewd behavior Brendt exhibited with former students. Subsequently, Brendt now faces charges for each count of sexual misconduct that he may have committed with a minor.
Allegations suggest that Brendt would tie up his victims against their will, while simultaneously placing giant cockroaches on their faces and spoon feeding them his own semen. The sexual abuse lawsuit he faces currently has him detained with a steep bail.
During their investigation, officials uncovered photos hidden at Brendt’s home that allegedly depicted young students bound and blindfolded. Several pictures witnessed students in a school setting tied up with large Madagascar cockroaches crawling on them.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the introduction of vile cockroaches to the bound children, was what appears to be spoons containing Brendt’s semen photographed next to their faces. “Early in the investigation, special victims bureau detectives recovered a blue plastic spoon and an empty container from the trash within the suspect’s classroom,” Parker said. “The recovered items tested positive for semen.” Subsequent tests revealed a match between Brendt’s DNA and that of the semen found on the spoon.
Kimberly Kirklin, the mother of six children, three of which still attend Miramonte Elementary School is outraged. According to Kirklin, she quizzed each of them immediately after learning of the arrest of former teacher Mark Brendt. While she remains positive that her children were not sexually abused by Brendt, she is mad that authorities neglected to inform her of his actions during their investigation.
According to the worried mother, her daughters refused to go to school after hearing about what happened. “She refuses to go to school,” Kirklin said of one daughter, as she embraced the child on a street next to the school. “I’m not going to force her.”
However, Kirklin and her daughters were not alone in their feeling of distain for the way the situation was handled. Several other parents argued that they should have been told as soon as the allegations were brought forth.
According to school officials, every precautionary step has been taken in the prevention of further adverse events. Subsequently, they took immediate steps to remove the teacher from the classroom and began working with both law enforcement investigators and victims’ families immediately.
Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy acknowledged that the school district was notified of the allegations on Jan. 7, 2011, and Brendt was removed from the classroom the same day. However, that leaves an entire year in which children were attending the school without being notified of what happened.
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