An arrest affidavit released Monday shows a Killeen Independent School District kindergarten teacher sexually abused a student while at the school.
Thomas Cannon, a kindergarten teacher at Iduma Elementary School, was arrested Friday evening and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.
He remained in the Bell County Jail on a $500,000 bond Monday evening.
The affidavit goes into describes in detail what the student says Cannon did to her and her friend. Because of the nature of the allegations, Channel 6 is intentionally leaving out those details.
According to the affidavit, the 6-year-old girl told her grandmother on May 10 after school that Cannon does "nasty things to me and my friend."
After the girl's family called police, a detective with the Children's Advocacy Center interviewed her.
The girl told the detective several graphic details of what she said Cannon did to her. She said it happened at her school.
Iduma Elementary School Principal, Katy Bohannon, sent a message to parents on Friday after the district learned of the allegations.
"As soon as we learned of the allegations, we removed the teacher from the school and he was sent home. "We will continue to work in full cooperation with Killeen Police, and we will aid in the investigation however necessary."
Bohannon said school administrators made personal telephone calls to the parents of other students in the classroom, in addition to sending the email to the whole school.
"The safety of our students is always our highest priority at Iduma Elementary and across KISD and we take their safety very seriously," Bohannon said. "We strongly condemn the alleged misconduct and will never allow any teacher or other KISD employee to behave inappropriately with students. If the allegations of misconduct in this case are true, we will support the strongest possible action against the teacher."
On Cannon's teacher website, a message from him reads "Thank you for trusting me with your children's future. I hope that I can help them shine a little brighter than when they first walked into my room."
Killeen Superintendent John Craft released a statement Friday night. Here is the entire thing:
Killeen ISD removed a teacher at Iduma Elementary School from the classroom and has prohibited him from returning to the school while the district works closely with Killeen Police on an investigation of alleged misconduct by the teacher.
As soon as we learned of the allegations we removed the teacher from the school and he was sent home. We will continue to work in full cooperation with Killeen Police and we will aid in the investigation however necessary.
We have made personal telephone calls to the parents of the other students in that classroom so that everyone has this important information. A campus-wide automated call was also made this evening notifying all Iduma Elementary School parents of the investigation.
The safety of our students is always our highest priority at Iduma Elementary and across KISD and we take their safety very seriously. We strongly condemn the alleged misconduct and will never allow any teacher or other KISD employee to behave inappropriately with students. If the allegations of misconduct in this case are true, we will support the strongest possible action against the teacher.
The district would like to thank the Killeen Police Department, the Bell County District Attorney’s Office, the Iduma parents and students, Bell County Sherriff’s Department and the Children’s Advocacy Center of Central Texas for their assistance and support with this matter.