Blue Ridge Thunder

The Bedford Bulletin, Bedford, Va., Wednesday, April 7, 1999

By John Barnhart, Staff Writer

    Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown announced plans to expand Operation Blue Ridge Thunder's efforts at a news conference in Forest Thursday.  The conference was held at the headquarters of In Mind, Inc., after Brown gave 6th District Congressman Bob Goodlatte a briefing on his campaign against cyberpedophiles.

   Blue Ridge Thunder is the name the Sheriff's Department has given to its ongoing undercover effort to nab people using the internet for criminal purposes.  Although the operation has looked into other types of crime, its main targets have been child pornographers and pedophiles.  The on-line undercover efforts began in February 1998 with a deputy spending 12 hours a week cruising chat rooms.  A $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice enabled him to add people and turn it into a full time operation with four people assigned to it.

   Brown plans to add a "Safe Surfin'" educational arm to the current law enforcement work.  Safe Surfin' is aimed at teaching children how to enjoy the Internet while avoiding predators.  He would like to have the program in every school in Bedford County in the coming school year, and every school in Virginia by the end of next year.  He hopes eventually to take it nationwide.  Blue Ridge Thunder is also producing an interactive educational video game.  The game will be available on Blue Ridge Thunder's web site, www.blueridgethunder.com.

   The educational phase of Blue Ridge Thunder also seeks to educate parents about the spiders on the web and how to help their children avoid them.  The operation has a Safe Surfin' pamphlet for parents and plans to produce presentations for teachers and parents that deal with actual chat room situations.

   Brown has enlisted the Salem Avalanche, a minor league baseball team, to help promote the Safe Surfin' message locally.  Blue Ridge Thunder has also negotiated public service rates for outdoor advertising and is working on an "informercial" for television.

   Blue Ridge Thunder has also received business support.  In Mind, Inc. is hosting the operation's web site free, and providing E-mail free of charge.  In Mind also took care of registering the operation's Internet domain name.

   Gotcha International, a sportswear company based in Irvine, California, will help promote Blue Ridge Thunder's educational program nationally.  Marvin Winkler, Gotcha's owner, is a personal friend of Sheriff Brown.

   Liberty University helped produce a professional video for Blue Ridge Thunder.  Additionally, the university helped get Brown on some nationally syndicated talk shows, including Oliver North's radio show.