Chatham-Kent police investigating Zoom call after 'grotesque imagery' shown

Members of the Chatham-Kent Police Service's criminal investigations branch and internet child exploitation unit are probing a Zoom video conference call Thursday night that included pornographic images shown to an audience of more than 200 community volunteers.

"Officers are concerned for the safety of those in the video and are working with federal and provincial law enforcement agencies to identify them along with those responsible for sharing the content," a media release read Friday.

According to James Rasmussen, one of the organizers of the May 16th Miracle food drive project, the goal was to hold a digital town hall meeting on Thursday to provide details about the project. 

"In the current COVID-19 world, we're all forced to communicate in different ways," he said. "We can't do face-to-face, we can't do small groups, so a lot of us are using different kinds of tools to communicate."

After approximately 25 minutes, Rasmussen said, people on the call were "Zoom-bombed" and shown "grotesque imagery," clarifying the images were pornographic in nature. 

Wes Thompson, a May 16th Miracle volunteer, confirmed the images included child pornography, adding volunteers of all ages were on the call. 

Zoom-bombing refers to unwanted intrusion during a video conference call, often carried out by hackers or Internet trolls. 

Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff said he called their police chief right after hanging up from the call.

... We've also seen people saying we're going to keep moving.- James Rasmussen, Organizer, May 16th Miracle

"They instantly launched an investigation," Canniff said. "They will find the perpetrator and bring them to justice."

Despite the events of Thursday's Zoom call, Rasmussen said the food drive project will continue, adding the project has a support network of more than 1,000 people who have signed up to participate in some capacity. 

"Although we all recognize how awful this was and how we're all victims in this, we've also seen people saying we're going to keep moving," Rasmussen said. "The more good we do, the better.

In a statement to CBC News, Zoom said it is "looking into this specific incident to ensure the appropriate action is taken."

"This incident is truly devastating and appalling, and our user policies explicitly prohibit any obscene, indecent, illegal or violent activity or content on the platform," the company said in an email. 

"Zoom strongly condemns such behaviour and recently updated several features to help our users more easily protect their meetings."