Parents in an Arlington, Virginia, school district are outraged after a registered sex offender allegedly exposed himself in a locker room late last year.
Richard Cox, 58, who claimed to be transgender, was arrested in December after he was found in a female locker room at Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center, according to WSET-TV.
Police Chief Charles Penn said Cox was arrested Dec. 6 on charges of violating the terms of where he is allowed to go as a sex offender. Cox was also arrested on similar charges for a November incident at the same facility.
He was also accused of exposing himself in the female locker room on Dec. 2 in front of one adult and two children, which led to charges of Indecent Exposure and Indecent Liberties with Children being filed against him.
Further allegations and similar charges date back to October and November at Washington-Liberty High School and Wakefield High School, according to WTTG-TV.
That a sex offender could come and go in Arlington Public Schools facilities by playing the transgender card led to complaints at a recent school board meeting, according to WJLA-TV.
Marvin Tubbs called for “accountability at the district leadership level related to the inadequate response to repeated visits to district locker rooms by a registered sex offender.”
Tubbs said school leadership failed to take the correct action.
“The only appropriate response to a report of an adult acting that way in the presence of children is to contact law enforcement and let them do their jobs. The appropriate response does not include allowing the conduct to continue happening for a period of months. The appropriate response does not include adding additional signage saying, ‘Please cover-up in the locker room’ and calling it a day,” he said.
“Any effort to involve the police would have enabled them to identify they were dealing with a registered sex offender on school property. The recent public statements by the superintendent represent parsing of language and do nothing more than appear to deflect responsibility,” he said.
He said any employee who was aware of what took place and did nothing should be disciplined, while board members who approved of the policy that resulted in nothing being done should quit.
Michelle Tubbs, an Arlington Public Schools employee who teaches swimming, said the incidents were bad enough, but the response was worse.
🚨New: Not only did 58-year-old Richard Cox expose his genitals to women and girls in the locker room at Washington Liberty High School, he’s also accused of crimes at the Wakefield High School women’s locker room, APD told me.
https://t.co/t1tKNTqEGh— Nick Minock (@NickMinock) February 5, 2025
“Why was signage and guidance the first response to the commission of sex crimes at our pools?” she said.
“How many times was a registered sex offender allowed to victimize pool patrons by exposing themselves in a locker room? Why did it take so long to identify the perpetrator as a registered sex offender and involve the police?” she said.
“Indecent exposure is a form of sexual assault. What is the district doing to help victims in the aftermath of these assaults? Third, these questions demand honest answers, and I am asking for a full investigation by an outside party,” she said.
District leadership “failed to recognize and respond immediately and accordingly to the fact that a registered sex offender was committing sex crimes on APS property by hiding behind the district’s LGBTQ plus policies,” she said.
“The superintendent and the board are guilty of exploiting them the same way the sex offender weaponized those same [policies],” she said.
Two women come forward about a trans-identifying pedophile who exposed himself to women & two children in a public locker room in VA.
“He sat in our locker room naked and watched us get undressed.”
Sick. THROW AWAY THE KEY.
pic.twitter.com/TdV949oUJR— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) January 23, 2025
One resident whose name was not used said, “There are reports going all the way back to June that people were complaining about this. And then when my friend in September had to deal with this problem and went to talk to the pool staff, and then was told that, no, this is okay because of the policy, then she reached out to the board, and then the person wasn’t arrested until October, and since October, there’s been no public statement by this board outside of a statement of what’s been said here tonight. That’s a huge gap of time.”
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