SALISBURY, Md. — A 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in the hallway of her high school.
And many students, teachers and public officials wonder how the crime could have occurred at about 8 a.m. Monday, a time when most Parkside High School students were in their first class of the day.
"How could that go on where a teacher doesn't know?" junior Kelsie Dukes wondered aloud.
The suspect, Parkside student Jocori Marece Scarborough, 17, of Delmar, Md., is accused of making sexual advances toward the girl then pulling her down a hallway, according to charging documents. He is being charged as an adult.
The victim said "no" multiple times before she was raped, the documents state. She reported the incident to school administrators. The Daily Times and USA TODAY do not identify sexual assault victims.
The school has almost 1,150 students spread out in a building with several wings, one with two floors; about half of the students are girls. The entire Wicomico County Public School system has about 7,500 female students.
"None of them should be subjected to the kind of treatment that's alleged to have occurred," school Superintendent John Fredericksen said. "This is just horrible. Our children should be safe, our families should be safe, to do their very best."
Scarborough is facing eight charges, among them first- and second-degree rape, first- and second-degree assault and kidnapping. Online court records show he was released on $100,000 bond.
A lawyer was not listed in Scarborough's court documents.
Fredericksen wouldn't talk about specifics, including whether the incident was recorded on camera or in which wing of the school the reported rape occurred. He cited the Wicomico Bureau of Investigation's ongoing investigation.
Bureau Sgt. David Owens and Lt. Tim Robinson of the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office wouldn't answer questions about the case because of the investigation.
In any large building, people sometimes don't see other people. Fredericksen said. Parkside has 22 specilized programs down various hallways.
"At any given moment, there may not be people in every nook and cranny of the building," he said.
The school system has hundreds of cameras in its schools and on buses, he said. Office employees can see live streaming video, normally split into four screens, but no specific staff member is assigned to watch the cameras, Fredericksen said.
Some of the cameras also moved are around in case anyone is trying to track their locations, he said.
If an incident occurs, staff members can go back and watch a video to see what happened, Fredericksen said. Most of the cameras do not record sound.
In addition to school resource officers from the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office assigned to Parkside, school safety employees and other staff members receive training to respond to crime.
Dukes, the junior, didn't hear about the incident until Tuesday when she saw a screenshot of a news report on Instagram.
"It's scary," she said. "It's very scary."
However, she said she isn't worried about her safety.
Another Parkside junior, Raquawn Williams, also hadn't heard about the incident until the day after it happened.
He said he grew up with the suspect.
"Why would he do something like that?" he asked. Scarborough is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Students at Wicomico County schools are required to follow a Code of Conduct, which lays out certain things students cannot do so that a safe and positive learning environment is maintained.
One behaviors not allowed –– that also is a crime –– is sexual assault, described as a "physical sexual attack on another person during school hours or during any school-supported activity." For students from pre-kindergarten to high school, the minimum punishment is a five-day suspension and the maximum punishment is expulsion from school, according to the handbook.
A student's history factors into the punishment, Fredericksen said.
Crisis response teams also assist students who have been crime victims, Fredericksen said. Mostly, these consist of school employees, but the services provided are determined for each specific incident.
To keep anything like this from happening again, he may have more training for staff, he said. Staff members know where school cameras are and check areas at varying times but he wants to ensure that they get around to more isolated areas of buildings.
Fredericksen called the case gut wrenching and wants to make sure any problem students are stopped before they commit a crime.
"Their behavior flies in the face of our community," Fredericksen said.
