Chesterfield police chief addresses Glasgow counselor fail
Chesterfield County Police Chief Col. Jeffrey Katz clarified some of the issues surrounding the counselor who got a job at Glasgow Middle School despite being previously convicted of a sex offense.
Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid told the Glasgow community Aug. 25 that an in-depth investigation will be conducted. The report, due Sept. 9, will include an action plan to ensure a situation like this never happens again.
The Chesterfield County Police Department arrested Darren Thornton on Nov. 19, 2020, at a hotel during a sting operation aimed at catching sex predators, Katz wrote on Facebook.
Thornton was charged with felony solicitation of a minor 16 years of age or older, use of a vehicle to promote prostitution, and possession of marijuana.
State law requires the police to notify school leaders when an employee is arrested for a class 1 misdemeanor.
Related story: FCPS to investigate how a convicted sex offender was hired at Glasgow
“Upon making this arrest, we learned that Mr. Thornton was a school counselor in a Fairfax County middle school. As such, within 24 hours of this arrest, we called Fairfax County Schools to find out the best way to make the appropriate notification to the superintendent of Thornton’s arrest,” Katz wrote.
The Chesterfield County Police Department was given two email addresses for then-Superintendent Scott Brabrand: [email protected] and [email protected]. Katz attached the emails sent to those addresses, dated Nov. 20, 2020, to the Facebook post.
Thornton was later convicted in Chesterfield County and was required to register as a sex offender with the Virginia State Police. During the registration process, Katz wrote, “Thornton lied about his employment, indicating that he was ‘self-employed.’”
Katz participated in another sting on, June 9, 2022, focusing on general prostitution and human trafficking, he said. “My team came upon and arrested Mr. Thornton again!”
Katz said he looked up Thornton online. “I was surprised to see that he was still listed on Fairfax County School’s webpage as a school counselor and inquired of our staff how that could be possible.”
When the Chesterfield Police Department’s special victims unit supervisor called Fairfax County Public Schools in August, that was the first time FCPS learned about Thornton’s past crimes. FCPS then fired him and announced the plan to investigate its employment procedures.
Katz said he learned on Aug. 22 that the emails for Brabrand provided by FCPS were incorrect and discovered there were several additional email addresses for the former superintendent.
“Given the reality, the former superintendent had multiple email addresses during his tenure, it is possible we were provided invalid or out-of-date addresses when we asked how to make this notification,” Katz said. “The technical nuances of the email delivery failure are still unknown.”
“We are fully committed to working in partnership with Fairfax County Schools to identify the issue and determine how we can avoid a lapse in communication in the future,” he said.
It’s pretty obvious that one of those emails MISSPELLED the former superintendent’s last name. If you know that the person you are trying to reach is named Scott Braband. And the email you sent to sbrapand gets bounced back, wouldn’t you try that address with the correct spelling? Seems like pretty minimal critical thinking to me.
Wow, this is incredible. First, would it not be reasonable for the FCPS staff who spoke with the Chesterfield County police representatives to have passed word up the line at FCPS that an important notification about a sex offender would soon be received from Chesterfield County? Couldn’t whoever provided Brabrant’s email address take special care to spell it correctly in such an important situation? Wouldn’t you follow up with Chesterfield on such an important matter?
And then is it unreasonable for the Chesterfield police staff not to have called FCPS again when the emails bounced back and even written a letter to Brabrant saying something like “we attempted to contact you by email but were unsuccessful. It is important that you know the following….”. You have time to notice that the person is still listed on the FCPS website as a counselor and ask your staff about it but not to make absolutely sure the notification was made?
There has to be more to this story. If not, this mess must be a candidate for a world record combination of laziness, incompetence, and negligence.