WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Task Force To Stop Online Predators Successful, But Needs More Staff, Funds

Task Force To Stop Online Predators Successful, But Needs More Staff, Funds

By Jeff Tang

(LOUISVILLE, September 8th, 2004, 7 p.m.) -- A task force created last May to crack down on child pornography and exploitation is fighting an uphill battle. Crimes are on the increase and the task force says it could use some help and more funding. WAVE 3's Jeff Tang reports.

It's a scenarios that has become all too familiar: in a yahoo chat room intended for kids age 9 to 12 only, some don't follow the rules. Det. Jacqueline Rogers with Kentucky State Police knows that for a fact from firsthand experience. She logs in under an assumed screen name, pretending to be in that age group, and gets plenty of propositions from older men.

"I've gotten 27 instant messages in just the past five minutes," she told us as our cameras rolled. One message was from a 35 year old, another from a 29 year old.

Whether it's through chat rooms, web cams, instant messaging programs or email, child predators have more ways than ever to reach children. "A lot of the parents aren't really educated about it," Rogers says. "They don't know what their kids are doing, they're not really sure what their kids are doing, and it makes it really easy for the kids to become victims."

"Many parents aren't following what their children are doing on the Internet," Rogers says. "It's easy for their children to be victims."

But on this day, the shady surfers didn't realize they were chatting with a detective from the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, the first of its kind in the Bluegrass. It's part of the State Police Electronic Crimes Unit.

However, the four investigators on its staff may not be enough to combat the seemingly unending supply of online predators.

Of all the cases the Electronic Crimes Unit is handling, about 75 percent of the of them involve child sexual exploitation, and many of them are still unresolved.

In fact, investigators say there is a six-month backlog. The total number of cases is up sharply -- investigators had 55 cases for all of last year, but they already have 61 in 2004.

"We're having to go with the most serious cases that we have and really focus on those and some of the cases are kind of getting left behind," Rogers says. "We're working as hard as we can trying to get them, but they're multiplying faster than we can get them through."

Internet Crimes Against Children Coordinator Laurie Buchanan is happy with the progress being made, but says more can b done. "I'm just glad we have gotten as far along as we have, but we can always use more people, we can always use more money."

The task force hopes to enlist other law enforcement agencies to help ease the burden.

Many of the task force's leads come from a cyber tipline. If you have a specific complaint or potential case, you can contact the tipline at 1-800-843-5678. That tip will make its way eventually to the Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

Previous Stories:

• Sexual Predator Task Force Nets Nine Arrests
• Task Force Forms To Catch People Targeting Children On Internet

Online Reporter: Jeff Tang

Online Producer: Michael Dever