Catch child predators

If the Internet’s worst feature is how it facilitates the sexual exploitation of children, it’s also a powerful tool for the good guys who identify and prosecute the predators.

That became clear again as the Sedgwick County Commission recently approved an agreement with the city of Wichita on the use of $123,370 in U.S. Justice Department funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children program operated by the local Exploited and Missing Child Unit.

The stories and data shared by Col. Richard Powell, chief deputy of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, and Wichita police Sgt. Jeff Swanson of the EMCU underscored the gravity and necessity of this work.

Powell described how one suspect had been collecting child pornography since 1995, and how he and his wife had been sexually abusing their own children. He spoke of how a cybertip received through Tumblr about a user who’d uploaded a picture file of possible child porn led to the discovery of other images reflecting the sexual abuse of the man’s 8-year-old daughter. And one mother in Florida, Powell said, reported Facebook conversations between her 13-year-old daughter and a teacher’s aide from the girl’s former school in Kansas, including his requests for nude images of her. Charges followed in all these ICAC cases.

Swanson said a recent cybertip from New Zealand about an image posted on a Russian website also led to a local arrest, as the abused child was from Sedgwick County.

The scale of this global problem is unfathomable. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 505,280 cybertips two years ago and 1.1 million last year – most related to apparent images of child sexual abuse, online enticement including “sextortion,” child sex trafficking and child sexual molestation.

Swanson stressed the importance of parental education, which also is part of the ICAC task force’s mission. “Get into your child’s phone. You pay the bill. Look to see where they’re going. Monitor what they’re doing. These people are out there,” he said at the commission meeting.

Commissioner Tim Norton touted the planned opening next year of the former Lincoln Elementary School as the Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County, a child-focused space to be the base of EMCU detectives and others who investigate and prosecute child abuse and neglect. Norton also called for more partnerships aimed at targeting those who target children online.

“It scares the bejeebers out of me that we have that going on in our community,” Norton said. “It’s our dirty little secret.”

Commissioner Karl Peterjohn called the growth rate in cybertips an “absolutely terrifying trend” and requested regular updates.

Credit the County Commission with helping keep resources flowing to this battleground, as well as supporting the CAC’s work and capital campaign. And those local law enforcement officers, social workers and prosecutors whose job it is to wage and win this fight deserve the community’s gratitude and ongoing support.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Catch child predators."