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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – The era of social media has brought with it a new set of worries for parents of kids and teens. As the online world eases predators’ access to kids, nationally and in central Virginia, investigators race to keep up with their tactics.
Leading the charge for its Internet Crimes Against Children Task force, or ICAC, is Albemarle County Police Department.
“When somebody thinks they’re going to meet a thirteen-year-old girl or fourteen-year-old boy and they run into either myself or one of our other detectives, the look on their face is rewarding enough,” said Albemarle Cyber Crimes detective Michael Schneider. “Plus, we get a predator off the street.”
Schneider likened the internet to the “Wild, Wild West” for people looking to hurt kids.
“I have a child of my own, my nine-year-old son, and seeing how innocent kids are, I want to protect that,” Schneider said.
Schneider and the rest of Albemarle’s team, including detective Michael Wells, protect the kids by pretending to be something they are not.
“I pose as a teenage child living in our community on various third-party applications and websites,” Wells said.
It is a newer and proactive method of investigating child sex crimes. Investigators set up social media profiles using images of adults that are edited to make them look younger.
Then, they wait.
“I would say maybe about 20% of the ones we interact are the ones that are taking it a little too far,” Wells said,
After an adult has reached out, Wells said it can take anywhere from one day to one year to turn online messages into real life arrests.
The unit makes, on average, 15 arrests annually.
“These numbers aren’t slowing down at all with the usage of the internet, these types of cases only seem to be getting bigger,” Justin Bowers, Charlottesville Police detective said.
Across town within Charlottesville jurisdiction, the ICAC program is just taking form but has already led to a number of arrests. Detective Bowers is the “one man band” behind this type of investigation inside Charlottesville police.
“Here in the last few months, we’ve really started to see that take off,” Bowers said. “We’re definitely just scratching the surface. There’s definitely a lot more sophisticated predators who are out there who just, for whatever reason, seem to skate by right outside of our radar.”
Wells agrees, it is not always easy and sometimes can feel futile.
“We’re really kind of catching low hanging fruit if I’m being completely transparent,” Wells said. “We’re doing our best with what technology allows us to do. We have to do everything we can in our power that’s legal for us to try to catch these folks.”
Wells said luckily, its cybercrimes unit is good at what it does. Enough so to be in charge of training other jurisdictions.
Still, the work wears on them.
“Nobody wants to look at these images and investigate these types of cases, but we do see therapists,” Schneider said. “We are actually mandated to see one.”
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