Riverside police say they’ve arrested a 15-year-old Brookfield boy who used Twitter to distribute a photo of a Riverside-Brookfield High School girl, who appears nude from the waist up in the picture.
Police charged the boy with distributing harmful material, a Class A misdemeanor. The case has been referred to the Cook County Court’s Juvenile Justice Division.
Thomas Weitzel, Riverside’s police chief, also warned that anyone viewing the photo online or distributing it on the Internet through Twitter or other means, could also face prosecution.
“[With respect to] those who choose to transmit inappropriate photos, especially of young females, over the Internet or social media networks, local police can report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and those photos will be automatically digitally tagged,” said Weitzel.
What that means, said Weitzel is that anyone viewing the photo could be subject to investigation. Anyone distributing the photo could face criminal charges. Riverside police have notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, D.C., so it can be flagged and tracked on the Internet, said Weitzel.
According to police, the boy claimed he digitally sent the photo to some friends and then used Twitter to distribute the picture in retaliation for being bullied by other students at Riverside-Brookfield High School.
