Tempe Union parents question district amid voyeurism charges

Parents spoke out after a Tempe Union High School District security officer was accused of spying on female students while they undressed in a makeshift changing room.
A number of parents spoke at a Sept. 2 school board meeting, calling on the district to increase safety procedures and transparency with families.
Prosecutors say Antony Cruz, 28, downloaded videos of female students in a changing room at Corona del Sol High School in south Tempe. The district said girls were changing in a dance room while the locker room was undergoing renovations. Police believe cameras in the makeshift changing room were "inadvertently" left on.
Arizona does not have a law that mandates security cameras in schools. Tracy Pearl, a technology and law professor at Arizona State University, previously told The Republic the dance room essentially became a de facto room because the girls were instructed to change in it. That means the school would have been legally required to ensure there were no cameras in the room or obtain consent from the students being recorded or their parents.
One parent, Ben Zorensky, questioned why the district had a camera in the room when it prohibits cameras in changing areas. Because the camera was installed in 2024, Zorensky also questioned whether other female students could have been potential victims.
Another parent, Cecilia Trevizo, questioned why the district did not inform parents that students were being recorded and that cameras had been installed in multiple dance rooms.
Trevizo said a staff member previously asked for the camera to be removed because of the dancers’ privacy concerns. She questioned why a camera was installed in a dance room in the first place. Trevizo also said another security guard insisted the camera remain because of concerns that students were skipping class.
“There were multiple opportunities to stop this,” Trevizo said. “There were multiple opportunities to protect these students, and these opportunities were missed.”
Trevizo called on the governing board to hold district leadership accountable for failing to keep the children safe, and to conduct a third-party investigation into who requested the cameras and who approved their installation.
Another parent said he’s unsure if his daughter may have been a victim and has received limited information from the district. While the district previously said Tempe police had identified all victims, it released a statement to parents on Aug. 31 indicating police now believed there were more victims.
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