Salida High School principal Talmage Trujillo, who was arrested last fall following a Sept. 23 school lockdown/lockout that contained enough drama for a television show, is facing a new charge. He is alleged to have erased evidence from his phone in front of police officers.
According to a report from the Salida Police Department investigators went to Talmage Trujillo’s office at Salida High School on Wednesday to serve a search warrant for his phone in connection with the incident that happened on Sept. 23.
The September incident involving the school occurred when an upset and allegedly suicidal student visited the Salida High School nurse, then left the building. Trujillo, who knew the student from his time as principal of Horizons Alternative School where the student was connected, followed the student, attempting to resolve the crisis. In the meantime, law enforcement arrived at the high school, locked it down, added a lockout, and then proceeded to order Trujillo to come back and let them talk with the student.
Trujillo received misdemeanor charges for the September incident including; harboring a minor, obstructing a peace officer, and first-degree official misconduct after allegedly interfering with police during a lockdown at the school because of the aggravated student.
A subsequent review by a third party suggested that there were miscommunications and missteps on both sides of the situation.
The Salida Police Department alleges that when they arrived with the search warrant for his phone, Trujillo “unlocked his phone, completed a factory reset, erasing all content, and then handed it to the officers.”
Police then contacted his cell phone provider asking for confirmation that the phone was wiped, left the school and contacted the District Attorney’s Office.
A warrant was issued for class-6 felony Tampering with Physical Evidence and according to Salida Police, Trujillo turned himself in “without incident”.
Salida School District has reportedly again placed Trujillo on paid administrative leave. AVV has not yet received a statement from the district.
Maybe, but for over a decade there was a positive working relationship between the local police and the school district. That’s why the superintendent agreed to pay for the salary of an SRO, the students and community showed support. It wasn’t until the super and the current principal took control of the HS did we begin to see issues. It was easy for the current principal to pull these shenanigans at HEA, the super approved. The was a mess in the making why do you believe so may staff resigned last year and continue to resign this year, the current principal has created such an unstable environment, he should resigned, It’s amazing that a district that claimed fiscal exigency, charges it’s own students to watch their peers play a sport/activities, charges huge fees for our local youth groups to use it’s facilities, and hide documents is embarrassing.
Our gung ho police seem to be more into punishing those trying to do the right thing than protecting this community. Any opportunity to protect the students is undone by their seemingly making an enemy of the principal. They do nothing about the dangerous racing, bullies in trucks or the idiots misusing guns in this community but they are fully willing to go after their perceived enemy with everything they have. They protect themselves and with the new DA seemingly here to conquer the town and go after the workers by having cops break the law weekly instead of protecting this community. We seem to be developing a police force that protects the wealthy and it’s own derriere. Throwing kids to the court system to be eaten and literally screwed is not the way to handle things. Since when do cops know better than the trained administrator what is the right thing?
He defied the police, so he must be punished. That’s how they do. If they don’t make an example of this man, how are they going to frighten and intimidate the rest of us into doing as we’re told, without question?
We’ll said, Beth.
Beth: as a longtime former educator, I completely agree with your assessment in that the trained Admin (Trujillo) knew better than any officers on duty when it comes to dealing with a student … had I been in Trujillo’s place, I’d have done the same thing (save perhaps for “wiping my phone”) … indeed, the School Safety Officer at the time was not the on-board, fulltime SSO but rather someone else with limited (if any) knowledge of either the student involved or the actual situation as it unfolded – instead it seemed to be more of a “power play” on the part of the SSO, uninformed reaction as opposed to thoughtful and appropriate action that benefits both the school and community at-large (including the student involved)