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CMPD: 14-year-old girl sexually assaulted at West Charlotte HS

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are investigating a sex assault case involving a 14-year-old girl at West Charlotte High School.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials confirmed there was an active police investigation but would only say CMPD is leading the case.

Detectives are being tight-lipped but told Channel 9 the incident was not a random act of violence. Police said the victim and the suspects know each other and that the suspects were not faculty members or anyone who worked at the school.

Officers think there were two suspects.

Parent Joanna Barrett, whose daughter attends school at West Charlotte, said she was not surprised.

“I know, she tells me a lot about kids and sex under the trailers, and in like, little spaces over here by these doors,” Barrett said.

The teenage victim told police she was sexually assaulted at the high school sometime between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Monday.

A source told Channel 9 that the suspects are people the victim knows, possibly other students at the school. That source also said one of the suspects may have had a relationship in the past with the victim, and that he may have coerced her into sexual activity with a threat to post compromising photographs or video online, or to share those pictures or video.

Sherry Davis is a graduate of West Charlotte and has a teenager of her own.

She said the pressures of social media can put children in danger.

“You see a lot of that cyber-bullying and doing that to another person,” Davis said. “That will affect the girl for a long time. The sexual assault, that's traumatizing.”

No further information has been released.

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