Join the Fight

A 12-year-old girl enters an Internet chatroom. Before long, a boy about her age strikes up a conversation. He has many of the same interests, hobbies and problems with parents she does.

He suggests they talk in an instant-messaging session rather than the chatroom. She agrees, and the two exchange more messages before the boy tells her he's really a man. "I didn't want you to think I was a dork," he types.

But the girl trusts this boy-turned-man - he understands her problems, and they like the same things - so they keep trading messages. Eventually, the man's messages turn sexual, soliciting the girl….

BUILDING THE CASE

An estimated 14 million American children have access to the Internet, and of those, one in seven will be sexually solicited online, says Justin Fitzsimmons, senior attorney for the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. That's two million victims, many of whom are approached just like the 12-year-old girl, he said.
Only this time, the deception went both ways. The girl is actually a police investigator who has been collecting the information from the messaging sessions to lead to the arrest and conviction of the man.

Such proactive investigation techniques were one aspect of the training sessions, said Elizabeth Cooke Cooley, a senior special agent with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division who spoke at the training. Investigators were briefed on how to set up online profiles posing as young children for services, such as American Online Instant Messenger, and how to sound the part. A binder given to all session attendees even included a cheat sheet of online-speak terms such as omg (oh, my god) and ttyl (talk to you later).

"You have to make the 50-year-old man sound like a 12-year-old girl," said Detective Micah Smith of the Linn County (Ore.) Sheriff's Office.
But investigators don't seek out the predators; rather they just enter non-sexual, community chatrooms and wait for their profiles or screennames to catch the eye of a predator, Cooke Cooley said.

"You have to be innocent," she said. "You will be approached."

Labels: chat room, Internet predators