The Mercury News is reporting that five Richmond, California, police officers—including two school resource officers—are among those who had a sexual relationship with a young woman at the center of a Bay Area scandal that continues to grow. The now-18-year old woman alleges to have had sex with dozens of Bay Area police officers when she was 17; some of whom she had known when she was 16 years old, and at least one of those officers once detained her for cutting class.
In addition to the revelations about the Richmond police officers, the Mercury News also says that a sheriff’s deputy from Contra Costa has now resigned and a police officer from Livermore has been placed on leave.
The scandal involving the woman who uses the alias Celeste Guap originally centered on the Oakland Police Department, which went through three chiefs in little over a week due in part to turmoil caused by the allegations, but has quickly spread to other agencies as a trail of inappropriate text messages between the young woman and several law enforcement officers surface.
The sexual misconduct involving Oakland officers and Guap came to light in a suicide note left by Officer Brendan O'Brien, who fatally shot himself not long after she said she threatened to expose their relationship to police officials.
Not surprisingly Guap, the young woman at the center of this story, has other revelations about her time spent with various Bay Area police officers:
Guap also said that she once attended a party with multiple Richmond and Oakland police officers. The cops drank heavily and used cocaine. Guap said she got drunk at the party and blacked out. When she came to, she found that her cell phone was missing; she believes one of the police officers stole it in order to destroy text messages.
This scandal, which we undoubtedly have not heard the last of, is bigger than a couple of “school resource officers,” however, it must be stated: “school resource officer” is a euphemism. Cops are in schools. It should be clear by now—if it isn't already—wherever they are … whether they are in schools or on the street … police must be held accountable for what they do.