PRESS RELEASES
Police Department Awards
By: Chief Gene Ellis
Christina was a typical 13-year old teenager who enjoyed trips to the mall and chatting online with her friends. Christina asked to be dropped off at a mall to meet friends for some shopping on a Spring day in 2002; however, she was nowhere to be found when her parents went to pick her up later. During the investigation into Christina’s disappearance, police looked at her computer and discovered that she had arranged to meet with a 25-year old man that she had met on the Internet. This Internet sexual predator later confessed to raping and strangling Christina before throwing her body in a creek, which he led police to.
We hear stories like this on a more frequent basis in the news and it illustrates some of the challenges that parents and law enforcement face when it comes to protecting our children. It was not so long ago that for a criminal to victimize someone in a community, they had to visit the community or live in the community in order to have some type of personal contact with the victim. This is not true any longer. A criminal can victimize you using the Internet from anywhere in the world. What’s more alarming is that a predator can victimize our children without ever stepping foot in our community by using a computer or cell phone. Physical contact is not necessary for a child to be victimized.
According to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, 55 million kids use the Internet and 1 in 3 children ages 10 to 17 have had unwanted exposure to sexually explicit pictures. One in 5 teens have been solicited to engage in sexual activity online and 1 in 33 have received an aggressive sexual solicitation where the predator has attempted to meet with them, called them on the phone or sent them gifts following online grooming. Seventy percent of these solicitations occur on a home computer and 22% occur on someone else’s computer. Sixty-five percent of the solicitations occur in chat rooms and 24% occur through Instant Messaging programs like MSN, AOL, or Yahoo Messenger. Another alarming statistic is that only 25% of kids solicited online told their parents and less than 10% of those cases were reported to law enforcement.
The DeWitt Police Department is committed to protecting children online and doing everything we can to help prevent children in our community from becoming part of one of these statistics. We are active members in the
Red Flags for parents when it comes to your child’s online activity include:
- Your child changes or minimizes the screen when you walk into the room;
- Your child suddenly spends substantially more time online;
- Your child starts getting strange phone calls from people you do not know;
- Your child has new clothes, CD’s or other items from unknown sources;
- Your child gets overly upset if their Internet use is restricted;
- Your child is unusually withdrawn.
Internet Safety Tips for Parents:- Keep the computer in a common room (not your child’s bedroom).
- Learn how to view Internet history files and learn Chat-room lingo.
- Consider adding filtering software to your computer to prevent access to inappropriate sites.
- Instruct your child to never give out personal information in an email, a chat room, or on a social network site like MySpace.
- Know the screen names and usernames your child uses for all Internet activity they engage in.
Law enforcement can not do it alone; we must partner with parents and all community members and ask you to report inappropriate online activities and solicitation to the DeWitt Police Department or to the Cybertip Hotline at 1-800-843-5678 or www.cybertiphotline.com. DeWitt Police staff are available to present programs on Internet Safety and protecting children online to all age groups, so please contact us if you would like presentation on this important topic.
PRESS RELEASE