Bemidji Middle School Asst. Principal Arrested On Suspicion Of Child Sex Crimes
The Assistant Principal of Bemidji Middle School has been arrested on suspicion of two counts of soliciting minors.
Brandon Bjerknes, 34, was arrested for one count of soliciting a child through electronic communications and one count of soliciting a child to engage in sexual conduct.
Bjerknes was taken into custody to Beltrami County Jail today at 6:43 PM.
He is expected to have his first court appearance tomorrow in Beltrami County District Court.
A school district voice mailbox for Bjerknes was still available at 9:30 PM today.
This is a developing news story. We will continue to keep you updated on our website as well as our 10 o’clock newscast tomorrow night.
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this is absolutely sickening. What a pedophile, lock him up!!
What a major disappointment. Nail his nuts to the stump and push him over backwards. I have niece’s that go to school there as well as many of you with children. I’m just floored by this news.
Why are you not waiting to report on this until he is convicted? Where is innocent until proven guilty?
Sickening and all too common! If authorities waited for a “conviction” to report such cases, imagine how many more ‘victims’ there would be…
The last time I checked, LPTV was not considered the authorities. Reporting this story does not prevent any more crime from happening, so there wouldn’t be “many more victims.” Also, you don’t know what he did. How can you call it “sickening and all too common” when you don’t know what happened? We have a justice system, so before we can witch hunt and “nail his nuts to the stump” we have to wait to hear if he’s actually guilty or not.
Jim, that is a ridiculous statement. The report tells what is going on plain and simple. This dude was arrested and here is the accusation. Boom, done.
Now if he was accused of talking to Russian, then for sure we could say he’s guilty.
He was a pretty bad principal he was really mean to the kid’s.
It’s public record. The story states that he was arrested “on suspicion of” not that he has been ‘convicted’ of the counts for which he was arrested. Nothing in this story states that he has been proven guilty. It simply states the known facts. I personally believe that a middle school assistant principal being arrested on suspicion of soliciting children for sex is a pretty big deal and is certainly worth reporting to the community.
As a parent of a BMS student, I receive sports alerts & school announcements via email & texts all the time. The fact that parents haven’t been contacted or notified about this is just mind boggling. Once again Dr. Hess drops the ball.
This is so wrong who would do that he should get the death penalty
No, he shouldn’t get the death penalty. That’s outrageously stupid and barbaric.
You guys are sick. When someone is even ACCUSED of pedophelia or child sex crimes, it is human nature to assume they are guilty. This man needs to prove himself innocent; Don’t defend his innocence until he proves himself.
Pedophelia and sexualization of children in the world, specifically the USA, has become normalized and okay. How could you possibly get angrier at the people revealing this information to the public online community rather than an ‘accused’ pedophile that works with young children?
Pedophelia is wrong. It is bad. Those whose do not believe so must be sought after, shamed, and put in a cell to rot away. Some cultures and ways of life are better than others
Ummmm lets see here,,, he open up a FAKE Facebook under a fake name of a 13 year old boy and of a school that is closed down and the IP address LINKS it straight to him!!!!! His HOME, than u say he was arrested only on suspicion!!!! Open ur EYES this has SEX OFFENDER written all over!!!! How do people not see that, geez!!!
You do realize that the people commenting on this commented on it before that information was released, right? Use critical thinking skills Sidne.
W, no one commenting on this thus far has indicated that they think pedophilia* is acceptable. In contrary to what you stated, pedophilia is not normalized and okay in the United States. It’s quite the opposite actually. If pedophilia was okay Brandon wouldn’t be in custody right now. I agree with you that pedophilia is wrong, and I’m not angry at the media. I’m more so disappointed in people’s reactions to this. Regardless of glaring evidence, justice must still be served. Jumping straight to conclusions and not taking the time to think about what we say and how we portray ourselves is becoming increasingly common. Yes, it is obvious that he is a pedophile. Yes, he should serve time behind bars for what he did. No one is arguing that he isn’t a pedophile or that he shouldn’t serve time.
Brandon deserves his due process and innocent until proven guilty! Brandon’s actions are not BMS’s. Its just shows we must never assume that our children are protected just because they are in school or church. Communicate everyday with your babies. I as a parent am very concerned about this issue at my daughters school. I have one daughter and if someone was to ever hurt her innocence this is something I or anyone else could NEVER fix for her, . Some views posted may be angry and that’s ok, who are you to post their posts are wrong because they don’t hold the same view/s as you? take a step back and let the judicial process take its course. Lakeland is doing what they do, cover the happenings good or bad in our community beginning to end.