Months after a scandal rocked the St. Michael’s College School over alleged sexual assault, Toronto police said they are continuing to investigate the video distribution of the original incident.

“Despite the various warnings, we have credible evidence to suggest that people are still in possession of this video and/or have made attempts to upload it on social media,” said Insp. Domenic Sinopoli, the head of Toronto police sex crimes unit, at a press conference Wednesday.

He said police consider the video to be child pornography and altering or cropping it does not change its digital identifiers. The video, which captures parts of the alleged sexual assault that took place in a locker-room on Nov. 7, shows a group of boys holding down a teen boy and allegedly sexually assaulting him with an object that looks like a broomstick.

Sinopoli warned the public that whoever is making these sharing attempts will be caught and charged.

“The video and its distribution is a constant reminder to victims of the trauma they have endured,” he said at the conference. “In many ways, this can be far more detrimental than the assault itself.”

The alleged continued circulation of the video is one of the “terrible” outcomes of the rise of social media, said Judith Taylor, a sociology and gender studies professor at University of Toronto.

“It’s hard to believe that this kind of thing happens,” said Taylor, whose research includes issues of toxic masculinity. “It is a shocking thing, and so people want proof of it themselves, and they can’t really imagine the conditions under which it happens.”

She said it is unlikely that students at St. Mike’s would circulate the videos, as their parents would have warned them they are part of a criminal investigation and sharing the video could land them in trouble.

But the fact the video could still be circulation, shows a lack of understanding as to how awful and detrimental it is to the victims and society at large, said Kale Munro, a Toronto psychotherapist.

“It’s bad enough for the victims to have gone through this, but to think that others are distributing and looking at it, and you could run into somebody who has seen it, it’s just horrifying,” she said.

While the issue will inevitably create a “great deal” of trauma and shame, those affected need to know that it is mainly being talked about in a supportive manner, said Munro. Victims need ongoing and long-term therapy to understand it’s not their fault, but this kind of experience can be haunting for years, she said.

“If it gets pushed aside too quickly, then it will linger,” she said.