Dateline Chesterfield
Police enact own version of "To Catch a Predator"
Online safety tips from Chesterfield Police
By Richard Foster CONTRIBUTING WRITER
 

James Lighthiser/Photo illustration Undercover efforts by detectives from the Chesterfield Police Department have led to the arrests of several online predators. The department's investigations are conducted much like "Dateline NBC's" To Catch a Predator series where detectives pose as teens in chat rooms.

Jerry Hoyle, a 58-year-old retired elementary school teacher from Henderson, N.C., must have been pretty excited as he was driving to Virginia, about to finally meet the 13-year-old girl with whom he'd been engaging in sexually explicit Internet chats for weeks.

Imagine his surprise as, after hours of driving, he pulled into the arranged meeting place - an Arby's restaurant on Midlothian Turnpike - only to discover that Chesterfield Police Department investigators and a jail cell were awaiting him instead of a teen girl and a hotel room.

"They're pretty much all the same. They're very shocked, and they know they've been caught," says Chesterfield Police Sgt. Ruth Baker. Sometimes they're apologetic, but "a lot of times they don't have a lot to say."

Baker is a detective assigned to the Chesterfield Police Investigation Bureau's Crimes Against Juveniles/ Domestic Violence Section, which for several years has been conducting its own local version of "Dateline NBC's" To Catch a Predator series, minus Stone Phillips and the news cameras.

"We are getting so many reports, and we know it's a nationwide problem with predators stalking children online," Baker says, "and we're being proactive to prevent any problems out there."

Hoyle was arrested in November 2002 and charged with attempting to take indecent liberties with a minor and three counts of using electronic means to send child pornography. He eventually pled guilty to two counts of attempting to take indecent liberties.

More recently, a seven-week sting resulted in Chesterfield Police arresting a 43-year-old high school guidance counselor, Randy Jennings, of Mount Holly, N.C. Again, Chesterfield Police detectives posed as a 13-year-old girl in an Internet chat room. Jennings was charged with attempting to take indecent liberties and sharing pornographic images with a minor. The case is still pending in court.

The detectives, who have received training in how to combat Internet predators, do not visit Internet chat rooms devoted to sexual topics, but general chat rooms devoted to topics that attract teens, Baker says. (Detectives also establish false MySpace pages for fictitious teens.) And most importantly, Baker adds, the detectives never initiate sexual talk, because that could lead to an entrapment defense.

Not that it's an issue. Most predators reveal their prurient interests very quickly. "They're very aggressive. Typically within the first couple lines of a chat, within the first 30 seconds, they ask the age, sex, and location [of the chatting "teen"], and then within five minutes they graduate to talking about sex," says Baker. They also may send pornographic photos of themselves or others, Baker adds.

Under state law, no matter where the predator is chatting from, whatever offenses are committed by a suspected predator while they're communicating with an undercover Chesterfield detective over the Internet can be prosecuted in Chesterfield County.

Baker says such work helps augment the work of the Virginia State Police and FBI and other departments that conduct similar investigations because there are so many sexual predators lurking on the Web.

Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, says the ACLU has no problem with what Chesterfield Police are doing, as long as it's handled appropriately to avoid entrapment. "The basic set-up of the Chesterfield Police, that is disguising themselves as teenagers while communicating on the Internet, is, generally speaking, an accepted practice. The question is whether they do something so enticing that they encourage a suspect to do something he would not ordinarily have done, and that can really only be determined on a case by case basis," says Willis.

Michelle Collins, director of the Exploited Child Unit of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is located in Alexandria, Va., says her unit gets 1,500 tips a week about child pornography and possible child exploitation or endangerment. About 150 of those weekly tips have to do with possible Internet predators.

"It's very encouraging to hear of smaller agencies within our state who are ... receiving training and undertaking investigations," Collins says of Chesterfield's efforts. "We know that these crimes happen everywhere."

Like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Chesterfield Police also get occasional calls from parents about online predators who have possibly approached their children online, Baker says, but so far none of those investigations have developed into arrests.

Baker says it's also crucially important that parents stay involved in their children's lives and educated about their Internet habits. To that end, the police have begun putting on Internet safety education seminars for county PTA groups and government employees.

It's also important to remember that predators "could be anywhere. There's no limitation," she says. "Wherever [predators] think they're going to find kids, it doesn't matter how innocent the site is. If you think your child is on a site exclusively for children, unfortunately [you] are going to be mistaken." Keep your computer in a central, public location in your home. Check the computer's history, so you know what sites your child has been visiting. Ask your child who they're chatting with. Make sure your child isn't putting personal data, such as their name, phone number, address or school name on a MySpace page or blog.

To report child pornography or online predators, visit www.cybertipline.com.

To learn more about how to protect your children online, visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at www.ncmec.org.