Dear St. Peter Community,

Dr. John Freitag, our school principal, and I want to inform you about an incident that occurred at our school Wednesday afternoon.  We informed our school families on Thursday and you may have heard about this in the news.  We now have more complete information to share with you. 

We were informed by one of our parents that an older man was taking pictures of our students as they were being dismissed from school. The man was taking those pictures from the Mike Duffy’s parking lot. One of our parents noted the car's license plate and reported this to the police.  Following an investigation by the Kirkwood Police Department, we have learned that the person responsible is an elderly man who lives in South County. It is important that you know that Kirkwood Police say there is no evidence that this man approached, hurt or took compromising photos of our children. There is no evidence that he shared the photos he did take. His computer and camera were confiscated by Kirkwood Police. 

The man in question was charged by Kirkwood Police for Issues of Child Pornography after discovering other photos on his computer.  He is now in police custody.  These charges are based on photos that appear to be downloaded from the internet.  Again, there is no evidence of inappropriate photos of our children. 

The safety and security of all our children is our highest priority. We are grateful to the parent who was observant and followed through by reporting this incident. May our guardian angels continue to watch over us!

Peace,

Msgr. Jack