FPD takes Internet safety message on the road
Posted on Saturday, March 1, 2008
LINCOLN - One in five children has received a sexual solicitation online. About 70 percent of the time, this happens while the child is using a home computer. Only about 10 percent of those incidents are reported to police, but Sgt. Bill Phelan said incidents should be reported.
This was the message Phelan and Officer Jonathan Snyder, both of the Fayetteville Police Department, shared as they traveled 20 miles west and took their Internet safety message to the town of Lincoln on Friday.
They visited Lincoln High School and gave a presentation on Internet safety to school staff and parents in the high school auditorium. About 40 people attended, most of whom were school staff members.
"We haven't been out here yet," said Phelan, a member of the department's special investigations unit.
There are two types of presentations Phelan does for area schools. One is designed to educate parents and adults, and the other is tailored to the students. Phelan said they like to hold sessions for the parents first, so they will probably return to Lincoln to give their presentation to students.
The officers started doing the presentations in 2006 at Fayetteville schools, and have since formed a partnership with the Washington County Sheriff 's Office to hold them in other communities as well. Phelan said they have visited schools in Springdale and small towns such as West Fork. They have also visited Huntsville and St. Paul in Madison County.
On Thursday, Phelan conducted a presentation in Fayetteville for Leverett Elementary School parents. He said they do the presentations primarily by invitation. Lincoln Assistant Principal Mary Ann Spears said she invited Phelan to visit the school.
Fayetteville is a member of Internet Crimes Against Children, a national task force law enforcement agencies choose to join.
"We're kind of obligated (to do outreach ) since we're part of ICAC," Phelan said.
Much of the presentation focused on the dangers of teens attempting to meet people they encounter online by themselves and revealing too much personal information about themselves.
To illustrate the point about how people can pretend to be someone they are not online, Phelan showed a video about a 16-year-old boy who goes to the library thinking he will meet a 17-year-old girl he met online. A man claiming to be the girl's father shows up, and the teen gets in the man's pickup.
Realizing that something is wrong, the boy later jumps out of the pickup and flees to a nearby school, narrowly avoiding being kidnapped.
Phelan said the department has four detectives who take turns posing as children online in an effort to identify sexual predators on the Internet.
After getting rejected, most of these offenders will often attempt to reach out to another child, he said.
"Our goal's not to scare you today. It comes down to you communicating with your child," Phelan said.
Some of the officers' recommendations for monitoring Internet activity included keeping the computer in a common room, posting rules by the computer and installing some sort of filter software. They also suggested parents visit Web sites like cybertipline. com to learn the "lingo "used by teens while chatting online.
Phelan also encouraged parents to be understanding if a child reports they received an online solicitation or graphic picture.
"They're not always real receptive to telling their parents," he said.
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