A teacher from Mesquite was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, officials from the Mesquite Independent School District said on Wednesday.
John Waters, 25, a teacher in Mesquite ISD as well as a football coach, was arrested on February 14 by police in Terrell.
A tipoff from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led police in Terrell to launch an investigation into Waters on October 13, 2022.
According to police, their detectives later allegedly “affirmed information relating to child pornography.”
A search warrant was then issued for an apartment in Terrell where illegal child pornography had allegedly been uploaded by Waters. Its execution in December resulted in the seizure of electronic equipment. Police say that a forensic team found evidence of what they allege is child pornography.
Currently, Waters is being held in Kaufman County Jail on a $100,000 bond.
In an email sent on the day Waters was arrested to parents of children attending Mesquite ISD, school officials said that upon learning about Waters’ arrest, he was immediately put on administrative leave.
Mesquite ISD also assured parents that there had not been “any concerns or allegations of inappropriate behavior” involving the suspect, as reported by In Forney, and that the district had no reason to believe that the allegations involved any of its students.
According to the district, Waters was employed full-time at Dr. John Horn High School from August of last year, and before that had worked in the district as a substitute teacher.
Incidents with teachers involved in sex crimes were off the charts in 2022, with almost 350 educators in total across the nation accused of some kind of sex crime, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Another teacher in North Texas was arrested on alleged possession of child pornography in January, also reported by The Dallas Express.
Brandon Froning, 31, was a teacher at a private school in Farmers Branch and, similar to the case of Waters, was suspended following his arrest.
Meanwhile, in Dallas, there have been 46 crimes related to rape and sexual assault in the city of Dallas so far this year, according to the Dallas crime analytics dashboard. This roughly amounts to one sex crime being reported each day, putting the city well on its way to achieving the same number logged in 2022, which was 343.
The Dallas Express will continue to cover these sensitive topics, including other aspects of crime in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, especially in its Crime Boss series.