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Creator of explicit viral video could face child pornography charges

Posted at 6:38 PM, Jul 25, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-26 05:20:27-04

TULSA -- Outrage continues over the explicit viral video that shows Tulsa young people fighting and having sex. Now police are investigating to determine if children were involved. 

The three minute video was viewed more than 375,000 times on Facebook in about 36 hours. 

After 2 Works For You originally reported about the video, parents whose children were shown have reached out saying they want to press charges. Since then, the creator of the video has also denied the video ever existed. 

"I am surprised that the girl who put it there thought...I don't know how she thought, 'This is probably a good idea. This is O.K.' " Capt. Rick Helberg with Tulsa Police said.

Capt. Helberg said they do not see a lot of videos similar to this one come through their department. 

In cases like this one, Capt. Helberg said if the person who posted the video to social media recorded or encouraged the fights, they could face charges. 

"On the pornography, we would take this video to one of our physicians and have them look at it," Capt. Helberg said. 

A doctor will look frame by frame to determine if anyone in the video is under 18. If any minors are involved, the person who put the video together and posted it to Facebook could face distribution of child pornography charges. 

Capt. Helberg said it only takes one minor in the video for child pornography charges. For every minor shown, that is an additional charge.

"When they are posting things like that, it is going to get back to law enforcement and it makes a super easy case," Capt. Helberg said. 

In the state of Oklahoma, someone can consent to sex at 16-years-old but cannot be recorded having sex under the age of 18-years-old without it counting as child porn. 

"It's very easy for us to determine who the author is - whose account that is," Capt. Helberg said. 

The creator wrote that all of the videos in the montage were sent in. If police find out minors are involved, the person who sent the videos to the creator could face charges too.

"They would be in the same boat," Capt. Helberg said. 

Police want to warn people who might think this is funny, that it is not.

Capt. Helberg recalled a recent case out of Osage County where a man was found guilty after posting a video of himself having sex with a girl under 18-years old on Facebook. That man was sent to prison.

"People are being sent to prison for incredibly long stretches of time because of child pornography on the Internet," Capt. Helberg explained. "They're routinely getting sentences of 300 or 400 years." 

If someone was featured who is under the age of 18 or did not want their video shown, they can contact Tulsa Police to file a report.

People over the age of 18 featured can also file reports. It may be considered child pornography. 

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