J.R. Tucker High School’s former head football coach, arrested Tuesday for alleged sexually related involvement with two students, represents “a threat to society,“ a Henrico County prosecutor said yesterday. But Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Deana Malek was unsuccessful in keeping former teacher and coach William Macgregor “Mac” Leighton from getting bail.

William Macgregor “Mac” Leighton, 31, faces decades in prison if convicted of five felony charges stemming from a relationship with an underage female student at Tucker that authorities say began in October.

State officials want to take the sex out of texting. In addition to lecturing teenagers across the state on the dangers of sending nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to friends via cell phones, some legislators are looking into how the state’s laws cover—or don’t cover—“sexting.“ The pictures, which apparently have been pinging off cell towers around the Richmond area, pose challenges for prosecutors who seek guidance in the Virginia Code. State law says some of the instances could constitute manufacturing child pornography.

Blake Glover smiled when the picture popped up on his cell phone. A classmate at Chickahominy Middle School in Hanover County had sent him an image of a girl they knew. She was wearing a bra but no shirt. Blake deleted the photo, but then it popped up again. He didn’t delete the photo the second time, but he wishes he had, because his mother found it.

Ihave this theory about humanity’s demise at the hands of technology. The end doesn’t come with a Terminator time-traveling to assassinate the leader of the human resistance. Why would machines need to purge humanity? We’re doing a fine job of that ourselves. We surf the Internet instead of interacting. We text instead of phoning. We chat online rather than talking face to face.

Henrico County’s chief prosecutor says he does not intend to bring child pornography charges against middle school children for texting nude pictures of themselves on their cell phones. But Commonwealth’s Attorney Wade Kizer said he still hasn’t decided how Henrico authorities should handle such “sexting” incidents, which aren’t really covered by law. His office and county police are still reviewing several cases involving students at Moody Middle School.

The news that the sexting phenomenon has infested Henrico dismays. The fact that it is taking place at the middle-school level alarms. But neither development comes as a huge suprise. Why should it? More than 30 percent of American adolescents have had sex by the ninth grade. More than 60 percent of high-school seniors have had sex. More than 6 percent of girls age 15-19 get pregnant each year. Henrico is not immune. The county’s teen-age birth rate is higher than that of Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, New Kent, or Powhatan.

The discovery of sexually explicit images of students at a Henrico County middle school has broadened into a criminal investigation of conduct at several schools in the county. Henrico police said yesterday that they are widening an investigation into the exchange of possibly pornographic images among juveniles at Moody Middle School.

Two Spotsylvania County students have been charged with child pornography offenses after police found nude images of juveniles on their cell phones.