Joshua Carrier, a former Colorado Springs police officer, was already facing allegations of molesting six children with 78 child sex assault counts, but is now accused of sexually assaulting a total of 22 children and faces 189 counts of felony child sex assault, Fox31 reports.
In May, The Huffington Post reported that Carrier was arrested for buying child pornography and then re-arrested a week later on suspicion of sexually assaulting several children. Before his arrest, Carrier was already the subject of an internal affairs review for showing his gun at a middle school sporting event (Carrier had been employed as a school resource officer and wrestling coach at Horace Mann Middle School in Colorado Springs prior to allegations of sex assault).
Although court documents are sealed, The Colorado Springs Gazette spoke with a victim’s parent who said that when Carrier was working at Horace Mann as a wrestling coach he sexually abused her son under the pretense of examining the young boy for ringworm, a common wrestler illness.
Back in May, when Carrier was initially arrested, a Horace Mann student on the wrestling team made an anonymous statement to a CBS4 affiliate in Colorado Springs that Carrier placed his hands on student wrestler’s bodies frequently when checking for ringworm:
He would actually take us into his own office one by one and touch us and look at us and stuff.
7News reports that Carrier had several assignments that placed him in situations with youth including a school resource officer at Horace Mann Elementary where he also served has wrestling coach, a coach for the Police Athletic League, and as an advisor to youth in the Explorer Scout Program.
Carrier worked for the Colorado Springs Police Department for seven years before he resigned in June amidst the assault and child pornography allegations.
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