A week ago, I babysat an eight-year-old girl. She persuaded her mother to let her hang out with me, even though I told her I was going to the library and had work to do. Beside her wanting to dress like a prostitute and liking songs with lyrics that would turn most middle-aged faces red; she didn’t want to sit next to me, but kept making excuses to disappear and use a computer where I couldn’t see what she was doing. One time, she asked me for help answering a Netflix ad, and another time she wanted help filling out a form for a dating service. She had already entered her name, a thirty-something age, and the location of her honeymoon. Sadly, I fell for her excuses, and now I can only wonder what-all she had gotten into online.
It would be difficult to miss all the news about apprehensions of child predators, but today a story in the Citizen-Times is highly recommended for all parents and babysitters of children who refuse to take them seriously. Lt. Wally Welch said ten detectives would not be enough to handle the volume of leads the Asheville Police Department gets on perverts attempting to lure children with pornography.
“There are as many bad guys out there as you can imagine,” [Detective Ricardo] Martinez said. “And it’s only two of us. There’s always work for us to do.”
Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, said three years ago he was amazed with the number of instances of child pornography trafficking in the Asheville area recorded on national Operation Fairplay software. Cases are slow to build, and prosecution has its delays, too.
