Catching Online Predators Is "Child`s Play"

More law enforcement agencies take up the fight against people who prey on children online. "Child`s Play" is the name of Arkansas` newest online sting operation, started in White County earlier this year. It works like the ones already run by the FBI and the North Little Rock Police Department: an officer poses online as 14-year old girl, and predators come to them. "From what I`ve witnessed here, there are some people on the internet you do not want your children talking to," said Sheriff Pat Garrett. In March 2004, detectives were able to make their first arrest. "We set up at a residence here in town, the man came and knocked on the door and he met me," said Garrett about a man thinking he was on his way to meet a 14-year old girl. The department started this sting back in February, first as an experiment. "Within 72 hours of setting our equipment up and getting online, we`d made an arrest," he said. Since then, detectives have made three arrests, and are working on 12 more suspects. Undercover officers are disguised by nothing more than a computer screen. "We don`t initiate any converstation, all of our conversations are initated by other people," said Garrett. When those conversations turn sexual, officers behave as a 14 year old would. "`No, that`s gross, I don`t want to talk about that,` or just the word, `bye,`" he explained. But for these detectives, it`s the dedicated predators that keep coming back, and can eventuatlly get arrested. The Sheriff`s Department says most of the time and money spent on this project is due to overtime hours. The detectives work outside of business hours, since, those are the times when teenagers would be home. Their most recent arrest was made three weeks ago. The Sheriff`s Department and the Attorney General`s office remind parents to keep an eye on who their children are chatting with online. They also say to keep a guard on personal information, like where they live or what time parents get home. Online predators will try to learn as much of that information about the child as they can.