KEARNS, Utah — One Granite School District parent is sharing her concerns after she said her son accessed and played a Jeffrey Epstein-themed game while at school, calling for the district to do more to protect their students from disturbing content.
The game in question is styled after the massively popular “Five Nights at Freddy’s” games, but instead of protecting yourself from a group of rogue animatronics, you are defending yourself from late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and other notable figures found in the Epstein files.
The game also uses real photos released by the Department of Justice of the inside of Epstein’s Virgin Island home, “Little Saint James,” where he is alleged to have trafficked young women and girls to be sexually abused by himself and visitors to his home.
The game can be played on several websites for free, and playing the game has reportedly become a trend in schools across the country.
One mother of a Granite School District student recently turned to social media to share her concerns after she learned her son was playing this game while at school. The topic came up one night while the family was talking about what to have for dinner.
“He mentioned the game, and it caught me off guard,” Michelle Martinez told ABC4 over the phone. “And so I asked him about it, and he told me that it was a game he had played at school.”
She said she was so upset that he knew anything about Epstein that she didn’t ask him any more questions. “I hadn’t had the conversation with him yet, or talked to him about situations like that yet.”
The fact that her son was able to play this game on a school computer was deeply disturbing to Martinez. “It absolutely disgusts me and breaks my heart that our children are subject to this, especially in this day and age,” she said.
School districts are able to block certain websites to prevent students from accessing them on their computers, but with free VPNs and proxies available on those same computers, it can become an almost impossible task for the districts to keep up with.
Still, Martinez feels like schools need to be doing more to prevent students from accessing content like this. “I think that the schools either need to remove computers completely or spend the money and upgrade their technology to prevent kids from being able to have access to games on their computers,” she said.
This is not just a problem for Granite School District, as the game has become popular nationally, and kids from all across the country are playing it and other games that feature similarly disturbing content.
Martinez said she thinks most students will grow up and remember it as a joke, but some kids will take it differently, and it will stick with them. “I just hope that the district or districts will figure out a way to put a stop to this so that we can protect our children just a little bit more,” she added.
Granite School District said that they’re aware of this particular issue and that they’ve taken measures to block it before. The district provided the following statement to ABC4.
“Granite School District is aware of a national trend involving students who are reportedly able to access an inappropriate game during school hours. In February, Granite received a concern about this game from one parent, and the district was able to block the website at that time,” the school district shared.
They said that they have since become aware of one additional concern that was shared to social media, but the district was not able to verify that the game was actually accessed.
“The district does not believe this game is being widely accessed at our schools. Regardless, we are committed to ensuring appropriate internet use in our schools, and we have a variety of safeguards in place,” the statement concluded.
