ALABASTER (AL)
The Birmingham News
By Veronica Kennedy — The Birmingham News
ALABASTER, Alabama — Shelby County School Superintendent Randy Fuller said Thursday he is stunned that a retired Alabaster teacher told police he had sexually molested more than 20 of his former students.
Alabaster police arrested Daniel Montague Acker Jr., 49, Wednesday and charged him with three counts of first-degree child sexual abuse. He is in the Shelby County Jail on $225,000 bond.
“We can only say that the allegations are shocking,” Fuller said. “We, as a school district, understand that child abuse is horrible with devastating consequences to victims and their families. …
In 1992, the younger Acker, then a 30-year-old youth minister at Westwood Baptist Church and a fourth-grade teacher at Thompson Elementary, was charged after a neighbor’s child who was in his class said Acker had touched her improperly at her home.
The school board suspended Acker with pay until the case was decided. A grand jury declined to indict him on the charge, and the school board decided to reinstate him after a full day of hearings.
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