High School Sophomore Charged With Wiretapping For Recording Bullying

Fifteen year-old Christian Aaron True Stanfield, a special-needs high school sophomore from Pittsburgh, was recently charged with a felony violation of Pennsylvania’s wiretapping statute because he made a seven-minute audio recording on his iPad of classmates who were bullying him. Stanfield let his mom hear the audio recording and then brought it to the South Fayette High School administrators so that they would handle the bullying situation. Shockingly, however, the bullies were not punished…Stanfield was. The school district ordered Stanfield to delete the recording and called the police, who charged Stanfield with violating the wiretapping statute. The charge was eventually reduced to disorderly conduct and a judge found Stanfield guilty. Stanfield appealed the conviction, and on April 29 there will be a hearing where the Commonwealth will withdraw the charges, leaving him with a clean record. Nevertheless, it is wrong that South Fayette High School even thought it was appropriate to call the police for what Stanfield did in the first place. It is also worth noting that the high school called the police to report a crime, but then in ordering the student to delete the recording the administrators, in our opinion, committed the crime of tampering with evidence.

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