ALBANY COUNTY — A startling case of police misconduct has occurred, leading to the indictment of Officer Joshua Spratt on charges of sexual contact with an underage girl.
Officer Spratt was working as a “school resource officer.”
Many today are concerned about the presence of police on school campuses, because police often treat students as criminals, searching them and treating them suspicion, at times arresting them for frivolous violations of school policies.
When children are treated as criminals in this manner, it conditions them for a life of prison. It conditions their minds to believe that “this is how they are.” Thus many of them engage in actual criminal behavior when they get older, and they land in prison.
The situation with school resource officers is even worse when an officer begins sexually taking advantage of school children, as appears to be the case here.
Officer Spratt is reported to have brought underage girls to cemeteries near the school and began sexually contacting them.
One of the minors was sodomized, according to reports.
Sometimes the criminal sexual acts would take place in the parking lot of the elementary school, according to reports.
Officer Spratt was married at the time.
Officer Spratt faces multiple charges, including four counts of third-degree criminal sex act.
He was also charged with counts of child endangerment and official misconduct.
He was subsequently released on $50k bail.
But Officer Spratt may not have been the only cop engaging in such crimes.
Sgt. Martin F. Zaloga Jr., from the same department, resigned shortly after Officer Spratt was caught.
Evidently Zaloga was connected to some degree in Officer Spratt’s crimes, according to reports.
Investigators found that Zaloga had been sending sexually explicit text messages to underage girls, according to reports.
Zaloga’s resignation is thought to have happened as investigations surrounded Officer Spratt’s crimes, reports say.
