HURST – With just days before the school year starts, parents at Bellaire Elementary School in Hurst are grappling with news of the worst kind.
"It's concerning to think about it, because we have little girls, too," said Bellaire parent Leticia Ortega.
Hurst police say after a months-long investigation, 25-year-old teacher Angel Sales was arrested, accused of fondling two of his third-grade students. Municipal court documents allege he'd fondled three other girls, too.
"Essentially, Mr. Sales was in the classroom and was doing inappropriate touching — sexual in nature — to some of the students," said Hurst Asst. Police Chief Richard Winstanley. "Some of those occurred several times in the course of weeks."
The arrest warrant affidavit says the girls reported being touched on their private parts when the students would walk up to Sales' desk to ask questions. One student eventually told her mother. An investigation started, and Sales was put on leave.
HEBISD tells News 8 it has started the process to fire Sales.
The affidavit says Sales denied the allegations, and Sales wondered if the children had made up the accusations because they were mad he didn't let them watch a movie. No one was home Wednesday at Sales' last-known address in North Richland Hills when we tried to reach him, and his attorney did not return our call for comment.
Sales bonded out of jail after his Aug. 10 arrest at D/FW International Airport. Police say he was arrested there after disembarking a flight from El Salvador. The investigation started in May, but police say it took some time to form a case against him.
One person interviewed in the affidavit denied ever seeing Sales do what was accused.
Sales is the second HEBISD employee this summer to have been arrested for a crime involving a child. The cases are unrelated. In July, now former Viridian Elementary principal Oscar Figueroa was arrested, accused of trying to meet a teenage boy for oral sex.
"It boggles the mind," Winstanley said. "Predators are out there. You don't know it until it happens sometimes."
For its part, HEBISD says it goes beyond the state requirements for background checks.
But that does little to comfort Leticia Ortega, who has three children headed to Bellaire this year. She said teachers are supposed to be second parents to their students.
"Should I send them to this school or should I move them?" Ortega wondered out loud. "When things like that happen, we don't know if they're going to be safe there or not."
