re: Oregon School allows teacher under investigation for raping kids to continue to teach

I have family there, and I agree 100%. It's a great little town. It is nothing like Portland or Eugene.

LINK

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St. Helens Acting Police Chief Joseph Hogue said police first learned of Stearns after a tip came into the Safe Oregon tip line, mentioning a TikTok video by creator dougweaverart. "It alluded to a teacher at a high school, last name of Stearns, who was involved in some inappropriate behavior," Hogue said.

"That initial post led to a bunch more interviews with people who were involved with the TikTok video or commenting on the TikTok video. That second name of Collins came up as well." Detectives scoured the comments of the creator's post and came across several instances alluding to inappropriate behavior.

Hogue said detectives contacted those commenting on the videos and learned there were multiple victims accusing Stearns and Collins of sexual abuse. "Many of these go back four and five years," Hogue said.

According to court documents, Stearns is accused of sexually abusing six minors, identified only by their initials, dating back to 2015 and as late as Jan. 2024. Court documents for Collins list sex abuse charges with three minors between the years 2017 and 2023.

When detectives learned of the abuse, they submitted a subpoena for the Safe Oregon tip, as well as the personnel files of both Stearns and Collins. Hogue said that in Stearns' file there were multiple mentions of inappropriate behavior between 2019 and 2023.

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Apparently students and former students were discussing the inappropriate behavior on TikTok and that’s how the investigation began.

Once they pulled the choir teacher Stearns’ employer file, there were multiple mentions of inappropriate behavior.

A second retired teacher named Collins is also implicated and he has been arrested also.

I can’t imagine from simply looking at them that most of these board members are OK with how this went down which brings the more salient point… how does this happen in a place like this? Why do these board members simply not use common sense? if someone is accused of this crime, they should at the very least be removed from any contact with kids, until some type of resolution.. whoever knew about the investigation should resign, doesn’t mean they are a terrible people but they obviously don’t have the internal fortitude to carry this responsibility..

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I mean it’s Oregon.

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This is true!

SB is probably all involved (especially that lispy school board president) and they are ALL covering for each other’s asses. No honor amongst thieves.

At one time, Oregon was a very racist state with “Sundown” towns. Eugene became very liberal starting in the early 70s with the influx of Californians.

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OTers thinking about Oregon even though they’ve never stepped foot in Oregon

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I was in Oregon on business literally two weeks ago and my single largest customer is based out of there, so I’m in Oregon quite frequently.

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Portland gives Oregon a bad rap.

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Portland governs your entire state. no different than Washington/Seattle