Police & Pedophiles
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Not only is chasing pedophiles hard work, but it’s also hard on your soul. This article offers some insight into the world of both the good and bad guys. The descriptions, as sanitized as they are, are still kind of rough to digest, but, IMHO, I think it’s important you know what goes on in the world of pedophiles. Doing so will hopefully heighten your senses about what actually takes place and encourage you to take a little extra care for your little ones.
An officer tells about his undying attempts at finding a little girl, now 12, who has been sexually victimized and has had her picture circulating on the Web for three years. She’s so popular (I hate using that term when considering the context of it), that she’s something of a collector’s item. Her audience has watched her grow up online. The officers explains that the look in her eyes has become distant.
Like so many officers hunting these criminals, their work day begins with entering chat rooms to strike up conversations with pedophiles. The officer doesn’t have to try very hard or even at all sometimes before the topic quickly turns to questions of sex, and nude photos begin to be exchanged. And get this: the chat room is on a topic totally unrelated to sex. The one mentioned in the article was on “education”.
A new approach has entered the investigation.
The girl has been digitally removed from some of the photos. This struck me as odd, but as I read on, I saw the wisdom of this move. What the officer was trying to do was to: 1) be able to show the photos to people who might be able to help, and 2) focus on the environment itself in the hope of somebody recognizing it. For example, people might be able to identify something in the hotel rooms she was in which might provide a clue as to what hotel and where.
In another example, some other clue in the photo might help identify the geographic location. Investigators have already made inquiries to experts about the types of trees in the photo to learn of possible locations. The article mentions that in at least one situation, a toddler (yes: a toddler!) was tracked down because of a subway ticket found in one of his photos.
Pretty smart!
You can’t do all that without showing the disturbing content in the photos. And showing the photo with the girl in it could put her in danger by alerting offenders that the police are on their tail.
The good news is that through the efforts of Bill Gates of Microsoft, a database has been developed to help investigators with their work. It reduces duplication of effort and helps cross-check the data they find.
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This article really made me think, I have a 5 year old daughter. I was molested when I was young. If anyone ever touched my daughter, there wouldn’t be enough law enforcement on the planet to keep me from causing great harm to or even killing the person who touched my daughter. I just want the law enforcement officers that are working these cases everyday to know, you all now have one huge fan, keep up the good work, you are doing an awsome job and every parent out there should be extremely thankfull that there are people like you in this world that are willing to do what others can’t or won’t. Thank you, Britany