Investigating online crime

POST FALLS – When a Post Falls runaway was in trouble last month, police knew right where to find her – on her MySpace page.

Post Falls police were able to use information about when and where she was logging onto the online social networking site to track the teen to a computer at a public library in Spokane.

Teens posting suggestive pictures of themselves online, adults chatting up underage girls, child pornography or, even worse, child rape: These are some of the situations that Post Falls police officers will combat with their new Internet Crimes Against Children initiative.

The department, along with other local law enforcement agencies, is the recipient of grant money from the state of Idaho for that purpose. The city will use the money to train detectives to investigate online crime.

Post Falls police already have experience in online investigations, and the damage caused by child predators can be severe.

“We’re actually starting to see more and more of this kind of crime,” said Post Falls Police Capt. Scot Haug.

Coeur d’Alene police are also training officers with Idaho grant money, said Coeur d’Alene police Capt. Ron Clark. The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department will also be taking part in the program.

Often parents have no idea what their children are exposed to online until it is too late.

Haug said it recently took officers only moments to find suggestive photos of several Post Falls girls posted with information identifying who they were and where they lived on the Web site www.ratemybody.com.

“We’ve taken some of those photos to the parents and asked them if they knew what their children were doing. They didn’t,” Haug said. “Predators will look at those pages. If we can find out who the girls are in minutes, so can they.”

Cell phones can also be problematic.

One recent case involved a teenage girl who mistakenly sent a text message to a man who is accused of later luring her to his house to rape her, Haug said.

The Internet isn’t necessarily increasing crimes against children, but it is changing the way perpetrators work, said Post Falls police Detective Dave Beck.

“It’s another tool for child molesters to gain power over young people and get into their lives,” Beck said. “This drives them so they turn this into a hobby if not a part-time job.”

Post Falls police Lt. Phil Knight won’t allow his 12-year-old daughter to have a MySpace account because of online dangers.

Knight said that pedophiles are becoming more sophisticated all the time, adopting false identities to lure children into discussions and using phony file names to send and receive pornography. Couple the criminals’ determination with teenagers’ views that they are invincible online and some kids find themselves in over their heads.

The Post Falls Police Department has already taken other steps to improve Internet investigations and handle child victims.

In the past child victims and witnesses were interviewed in the same sterile rooms officers use to interview suspects. The rooms are only equipped with a table and chairs.

Now the department has a new room for child interviews with soft furniture, a rug, carpeting and artwork. Unobtrusive, state-of-the-art equipment begins visual and audio recording as soon as the child and officer enter the room.

“It’s hopefully a more comfortable, homey type environment,” Haug said.

All Internet crime is investigated from a special computer that is kept isolated from the rest of the department’s computer network to prevent viruses from being spread to other computers and to keep unauthorized people from viewing any pornography or other inappropriate content that is part of the case.

“This material is extremely sensitive in nature,” Knight said, adding that it takes a special kind of officer to be able to handle the work.

Investigating crimes against children can take its toll, but is rewarding, Beck said.

“You’re basically a human rubber band because your emotions get stretched from one extreme to another,” he said. “But you know you’re going after people who are evil and hurting our children.”