Sheriff's Department lauded for 'Operation Blue Ridge Thunder'

EDITORIAL

    The Bedford County Sheriff's Office deserves praise for taking a position at the forefront of an on-line quest for those who create, market and distribute a vile and despicable product, child pornography.

    During the first three months of operation for Operation Blue Ridge Thunder, the department's name for its cyberpatrol effort, 60 people in 10 states and two foreign countries have been identified as either selling child porn into the county or looking for local children for sexual purposes.  Whithin the same three month period, authorities have downloaded at least 10,000 sexually explicit photographs of youngsters.

    Rather exceptional, considering the program now is only part time.  Quite alarming, too, because what local police have so far discovered represents just the tip of a very insidious iceberg.

    Deputy Sergio Kopelev, who the media has dubbed "Bedford's Cybercop," spends just 12 hours a week crusing the web for criminals.  Posing as a pedophile, he makes contact with pornographers in chat rooms.  Once he's sent images, Kopelev works to locate and identify the sender.

    Sheriff mike Brown said the Internet undercover operation, hailed as the first local law enforcement effort of its kind in Virginia, began when a Florida man contacted a 14-year-old girl in Bedford County and asked her to make a pornographic film with him.

    To date, Operation Blue Ridge Thunder has been responsible for the arrests of eight individuals on charges of felony child pornography distribution.

    A job well done.  We hope the [National] Center for Missing and Abused Children, to which the Sheriff's Department recently applied for a $250,000 grant, will approve the funds, putting Bedford's cybercop on patrol full time, help haul in porn peddlers currently under investigation and expand the electronic patrol.

    Distributing obscene images of children through the world wide web is by no means an issue of free speech.  It is a criminal act and should be zealously pursued and prosecuted as such.  Operation Blue Ridge Thunder represents an effective means of tracking down those who prosper from perversion.  It deserves our support and should be expanded.