A photographer at a Virginia elementary school has reportedly lost his job after being accused of making inappropriate comments to young students, including asking a boy, “Can I eat your soul?”
Bridget Outlaw, principal of Chittam Elementary School in Chesapeake, said in an email to parents last week that a photographer hired to take photos of the school had been escorted off campus for making “inappropriate comments” to students, WTKR reported. The photographer, whose name was not released by school or company officials, was employed by LifeTouch, a family and school photography service owned by Shutterfly.
In an interview, parent Rachel Field told WTKR that her son was sitting to have his school picture taken when the photographer asked her son, “Can I steal your identity? Can I eat your soul?”
“You can say all you want about good and evil, God and the Devil, the devil and all that, but at the end of the day, what was said was not funny and it's not acceptable. It put a child in an uncomfortable situation,” Field said. “I know people are trying to say, 'She was just joking. It was just funny,' but that's not funny. It's not funny. It doesn't reassure a child, it just scares them.”
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A school bus arrives at George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia on August 21, 2023. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“She asked my son, 'Can I steal your identity?' And his answer was simply 'No.' Her next question was 'Can I eat your soul?' And, you know, when he confessed to us, he was very upset and crying and said 'No, no,'” Fjeld said of her son's interaction with the photographer.
“Her next question was, 'So what should I eat?' He told me, 'Mom, I didn't know what to say to that, so the first thing that came to my mind was, 'It's okay to eat noodles, it's okay to eat noodles,' and her answer was, 'The devil doesn't eat noodles.'”
The mother, who initially raised the alarm about the comments in a private Facebook post, also thanked the primary school for its swift response.
“The incident was reported to the principal and it was a fantastic response. The school handled it, which I'm very grateful for. They handled it very quickly, they took her out of the school straight away and they called us,” Fjeld told the outlet.
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After the comments were reported, school officials “immediately addressed the issue and the individual was removed from school grounds,” Outlaw wrote in an email to school officials last week, according to the local station. “The parents of the students who reported their concerns have been notified.”
This file photo shows a photographer and students during “Picture Day” at Rogers International School in Stamford, Connecticut, on Sept. 23, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images)
“I want to commend the students for quickly reporting the incident,” Outlaw said. “I'm grateful that our message of 'if you see something, say something' was used effectively in this situation.”
On Friday, a Shutterfly spokesperson told WTKR that the photographer involved in the Chittam Elementary School incident is no longer employed by LifeTouch Photography and that an internal investigation is ongoing.
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“At LifeTouch, the safety of all students we photograph is our number one priority,” the company said in a statement. “We have numerous policies and procedures in place to ensure their safety, including training and background checks for all photographers. We take any allegations against our photographers very seriously and are conducting a thorough internal investigation. In the meantime, the employee in question has been removed from all photography duties.”
