photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Sept. 4, 2024.

A teenage boy has been charged with a felony after he allegedly took a nude photo of a younger special needs student last spring and shared it, and the Lawrence Police Department has acknowledged that the case was initially mishandled.

The student, a juvenile whom the Journal-World is not naming, now faces one count of aggravated unlawful transmission of a visual depiction of a child. The charge filed last week in Douglas County District Court stems from an incident in May when the teen was accused of taking a photo of 15-year-old Shawn Danger Collier in a boys’ restroom at the school at 4700 Overland Drive. Collier has TAR Syndrome, a rare congenital disorder that affects his heart and immune system, as well as his arms, which lack radius bones.

The boy who took the photo — reportedly one of four juniors in the bathroom with Shawn that day — insisted in a required written apology to the family that he meant no harm.

“I didn’t take the picture with the purpose of humiliating or making fun of anyone,” he wrote in a one-paragraph note that the school’s assistant principal, Matt Renk, emailed to Shawn’s mom, Michele Collier, who shared it with the Journal-World. “I’m sincerely sorry the incident was shared.”

photo by: Contributed

Michele Collier is pictured with her son, Shawn Danger Collier. The Collier family chose to use their names and photos with this story.

Police confirmed in May that a criminal investigation was underway after a school resource officer initially told the Collier family that pursuing an investigation could result in Shawn himself being charged with battery because one of the older boys said that Shawn had punched his backpack — a claim that struck Shawn’s family as “unreal” given the condition of Shawn’s arms.

Police Chief Rich Lockhart, in an Aug. 4 letter to the family, acknowledged that the resource officer’s handling of the case violated department policy.

“We are working with the officer to make sure the officer understands our policy and I am confident this will not happen again with this officer,” Lockhart wrote. “Please accept my apologies for not meeting your expectations when we handled this call.”