Porn arrest tells threat

Fannin school leaders respond to Gilmer incident

“See it, say it.” Shannon Dillard uses those four words as the foundation for what needs to happen when something looks out of place in Fannin County schools.

That something can be anything: bullying, intimidation, harassment, weapons, vapes, drugs or even something that just seems out of place.

Dillard, superintendent of the local schools, and other leaders talked about the importance of reporting inappropriate behavior last week following an incident at Gilmer County High School (GCHS). There, “see it, say it” led to an arrest on multiple pornography related charges.

The Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office charged Ronald Richardson, 48, of 1205 Newport Drive, Ellijay, Georgia, with 72 counts of Possess or Control Any Material Depicting A Minor in Sexually Explicit Conduct. He was arrested January 17, 2025, spent 22 days in jail, and is free under a $50,000 bond, according to Gilmer County records.

Richardson is accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to alter images of students to be sexually explicit.

In a press release, Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said a student told the school resource officer at GCHS that Richardson asked her to send him photos through a social media app.

The student said she had communicated with Richardson often over the past year as he refilled campus vending machines, but this was the first time he had ever asked her to send photos.

Nicholson said all the sexually explicit images were originally normal photos from social media. Richardson is accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to make his  victims appear naked in the photos.

Dillard, along with Chief Operations Officer Darren Danner, Communications Director Gini Tipton, and School Resource Officer Commander Lieutenant Darvin Couch talked about the dangers of AI last Friday morning, February 7.

“Any electronic footprint...it can be captured and altered by AI,” Dillard said. She was referring to such things as pictures on social media and even voice recordings. For example, pictures can be captured directly off Facebook posts. Data travels in the background of free apps on a phone, so when Facebook is running on a cellphone, that data is in danger of being stolen.

Couch said, “We’ve got to get it in the kids’ minds that dangers exist and those dangers have to be reported.” “It’s a constant education of the kids,” Danner said. (Editor’s note: See the accompanying story on how students and members of the community, too, can report things they see anonymously to the school system).

Tipton agreed, pointing out young people are “under protected in the online world...over protected in the real world.” The school system does block social media on school devices.

But most kids either don’t or are hesitant to report some of the things they see or happen. The reasons are simple, usually embarrassment or they are afraid they’ll get in trouble.

In some cases, they are afraid “some of their biggest mistakes” will be revealed, Tipton said.

But everyone urged students in the schools, parents, grandparents, everyone to “see it, say it.”

“It’s a community thing...it’s everybody” working together to keep kids safe, Tipton said.