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UPDATE: Second Victim in Case of Suspect Shooting Video Up Women's Skirts in Walmart

By: Marci Manley, KARK 4 News
Updated: June 14, 2012
Completely unaware, an unidentified woman, captured on Walmart surveillance video, is targeted in a sneak attack that loss prevention officers would report to police. 

"They picked up on the cues. They are trained to watch for shoplifters but in this case, he was acting so suspicious," said Conway Police Officer Sean Canady.

Police identified the man who was stooping to shoot images from under women's skirts as 55-year-old Michael Rush. Rush has been a teacher in the Vilonia School District for 15 years.

The surveillance video shows brazen behavior. In one clip, Rush bends over the shoulder of a child, using an iPod concealed in a notebook, to capture a clip of  what appears to be the little  girl's mother.

"You see in the videos these women don't even notice it happening," Canady said. "With technology advancing so fast, it's getting easier and easier for people to do these things."

In another clip, he actually crouches down to scan the bottom of a woman's skirt as she stands in the checkout line, then nonchalantly walks away.

In another, he pretends to drop a shopping list and takes a swipe under the skirt of a mom who has a baby saddled at her side.

Despite the four clips of daring displays, right now police tell us Rush will face one misdemeanor harassment charge.

"How is that all he faces?" we asked Canady.

"Well, that's the greatest of the misdemeanor charges, it's the most severe. It carries a year in county jail and $2,500 fine," Canady said. "Because he followed these victims, random victims at that, harassment seems to be the best fit."

Arkansas does have video voyeurism laws, but according to Canady there are criteria the cases would have to meet and detectives feel like the harassment requirements are more easily met.

"As far as video voyeurism, I believe the statutes require a lot more things to take place, certain criteria for what's on the video for it to fit into that," Canady said.

According to the law, felony video voyeurism would require the images be captured in a private place out of public view, where the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy and hadn't consented to the observation.

Even for misdemeanor video voyeurism, which includes capturing images of a person's body that is covered in clothing, for which the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, other criteria are still there including lack of knowledge of images being captured and a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Those requirements may not apply to a grocery store aisle, but could indicate the law lagging behind advances in technology.

"Technology is always going to be ahead of the laws...but I'm sure they're going to try and stay up the best they can." Canady said. "We've had cell phones and texting while driving for a long time, but it just recently became a law on the books."

Because officers were only able to watch Rush's actions live in one of the cases, that's the only instance they can directly file charges on right now.

"You have warrant process for certain things. When you have things actually witnessed by certain officers as they happen you can go ahead and make the charge," Canady explained. "In the one case we can make the harassment charge, but in the others it's going to be a warrant process where the victims have to file reports and seek charges because it wasn't actually witnessed by law enforcement as it happened."

Two of the women in the videos still remain unidentified. Police say if they recognize themselves and want to move forward with charges, the police department will be there to help.

On Thursday, for the second day in a row, we stopped by Rush's home but no one answered the door.

According to Vilonia School District, Rush is still employed. Superintendent Frank Mitchell told KARK that since school is out and Rush would have no contact with children, the district is not rushing a decision, awaiting more information from police before taking action.

Comments

Are the police checking his home computer??? Need to!

Sue F. June 15, 2012 at 8:50 am

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