A Bartram Trail High School teacher was arrested over the weekend for allegedly engaging in lewd behavior near kids at a local beach, The Citizen has learned.
Christopher Ford, 29, of St. Augustine, whose name appears to have been removed from the school’s website, is facing a felony charge of obscene behavior in front of minors.
Police received a 911 call at about 11:20 a.m. and responded to St. Augustine Beach at 16th Street after several people complained of Ford’s conduct.
Arriving St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office deputies spoke to a woman from North Carolina who was chaperoning three foreign exchange students, according to an arrest report.
She said she noticed at one point that Ford was “lingering” near them in the surf and positioning himself so that the waves carried the minors closer to him.
Now on high alert, the woman said another beachgoer then approached her and said she witnessed Ford allegedly masturbating near the foreign exchange students.
An adult separated the kids from Ford at that point, papers state.
Police later interviewed the witness who alerted the woman from North Carolina. The witness said she was at the beach with her two daughters, and Ford previously approached her own kids that morning. “It was very obvious Ford was intentionally masturbating” in their vicinity, she told deputies, according to a complaint.
All five kids ranged in age from 10 to 12, court papers state.
Police interviewed Ford at the scene, who denied all the allegations against him, saying “he had been nowhere near any children.”
“Ford implied it was a coincidence that multiple witnesses identified him and provided the same statements and nothing they reported was true,” an arrest report states.
Ford said he had had never placed his hands in his shorts at any point that day.
He was arrested at the scene, and informed officers that he was a teacher at Bartram.
Sunday’s arrest marks the second Bartram teacher to have been taken into custody in two months.
English teacher Lucas Worsham was arrested last month for allegedly soliciting prostitution from an undercover cop online last month.
