Bedford Internet police hit Washington

The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va., Friday, October 1, 1999

by Erin Martin

WASHINGTON -- Congressmen and their staff member grimaced and furrowed their brows Thursday as graphic slides showed children performing coerced sex acts.

"These images and [the] language used here today will be very graphic," said Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown in warning.  "You can choose to leave or turn your head.  I ask you to watch because I want you to leave here as incensed and angry as we are."

The crowd, of mostly Congressional staff members, shifted uncomfortably.  Some murmured in disgust, but no one left.

The Bedford County Sheriff's Office was bringing its program to fight child Internet pornography to the nation's capital in a briefing before the Congressional Internet Caucus Thursday.

"The absolute horror of these images is echoed by everyone in this room," said Sgt. Sergio Kopelev, the office's first online undercover agent.  "What's more horrifying is that anyone online can access this."

In the first local law enforcement briefing of its kind, Bedford County officers wanted those present to feel the rage they feel when investigating and prosecuting pedophiles.

"Moral outrage is not necessarily proof.  You must have legally investigated cases," said the county's Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz.  "Sooner or later, each one of these offenders is going to be released into the local community, and it will be a local law enforcement problem."

Their program, Operation Blue Ridge Thunder, is one of 10 in the nation fueled by $200,000 of grant money from the U.S Department of Justice last year.

Bedford County was the smallest agency to receive the money.  The Dallas Police Department, New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, and six other law enforcement agencies received varying amounts of the $2.4 million.

But the money is going to an immense and growing cause, Brown said.

Adam Spector, a public affairs specialist with the Department of Justice, was one of the 40 people at the briefing.  The department is increasingly aware of the severity of the problem and the difficulty law enforcement has in facing it, he said.  Eight additional agencies will receive similar grants this fall.

Personally, Spector said Thursday's presentation brought the issue home for him.

"I was aware of the graphic pictures out there, but it brings it to a new level actually seeing these," he said.  "It emphasizes the importance of their work.  It's gratifying to see progress like this in action."

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 10,000 web sites are run by pedophiles, with 2.5 million children involved in the sex trade industry worldwide.  With 45 million children predicted to be online by 2002, a pedophile's pool of potential victims is expanding, Kopelev said.

"The same way a smoker needs a cigarette first thing in the morning, a sex offender wakes up and desires that contact with a child," Kopelev said.

But the worry is not that a child will bump into a dirty web page online.  The concern is chat rooms when pedophiles can have direct contact with the child.

While Kopelev spoke, Investigators Mike Harmony and James Watson demonstrated how the officers track pedophiles through chat rooms.  Watson posed as a 12-year-old girl and "talked" with more than 25 adults making sexually explicit innuendoes.  While Watson answered questions innocently, the responders pressed him for more detail.  One offered to send a graphic video.  Another wanted to set up a phone call.

"We've got between 25 and 30 IMs (Instant Messages) going here, and only six questioned why she was home alone," Harmony said.  "The rest are feeding off this information."

That method of "grooming" a victim is why education is so important, said the Rev. Travis Witt, Chaplain to the Bedford County Sheriff's Office.

He told the Caucus about the program's Safe Surfin' program to educate fourth through seventh graders about responsible Internet use.  The program, which included the Salem Avalanche baseball team last year, will now be expanded to 160 minor league teams and will reach all of the county's students in their classroom.

To address younger computer users, the agency us working on coloring books and community outreach.

Despite Thursday's images and language, Congressman Bob Goodlatte, R-6th District, said the presentation was one of  progress and hope.  Goodlatte is one of the caucus's co-chairmen and notified Brown of the award last September.

"I wanted them to see not only that the problem exists, but what can be done about it.  Each one of these pictures is a criminal act in progress," Goodlatte said after the briefing.  "The Internet is a wonderful tool for children and for everyone, but it's like a street filled with different types of corruption.  It's an important part of law enforcement to clean them up."