Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A 15-year-old Sweet Home girl recently was returned to Oregon after leaving for Texas with a 21-year-old man she met through the Internet.
She turned up missing on a Friday, Sweet Home Police Detective Cyndi Pichardo said. Her grandparents reported her disappearance to the police on the following Monday.
Her grandparents told police that she had been using the computer a lot lately, Pichardo said. Pichardo suspected a connection and took a look at the computer. She found the girl’s myspace.com profile and was able to read her chat history with several other myspace.com users.
They had apparently been in contact with each other for at least three months, Pichardo said. They exchanged phone numbers and began talking by phone.
Pichardo learned that the girl had planned to meet the Texas man, Omar Rodriguez, 21, at the girl’s house. He was to drive to Oregon and take her back to Texas.
Pichardo contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI in El Paso, Texas. The FBI arrested him after the girl turned herself in at the local police department. Rodriguez had crossed over the Mexican border and returned the next day. He is in federal custody and being charged with taking the girl across state lines, along with sexual abuse.
NCMEC and the FBI’s El Paso office were instrumental in coordinating the multi-jurisdictional issues, Pichardo said. Myspace.com also cooperated, providing account information and recovering deleted e-mails.
“She felt in some way … it was safe enough to get into a car,” Pichardo said. In the end, she said, the girl’s story turned out much better than others.
Pichardo told the local girl’s story during a July 18 public seminar on Internet safety put on by the Police Department. During the seminar, she showed video of a teenage girl who ended up dead when she ran away with a man she met through the Internet.
Even teens who think they know how to protect themselves can be at risk to predators, she said.
Another video showed how easy it is for predators to put together profiles of children based on screen names the predator can get in a chat room, conversation and profile information – even profile information that appears to be lacking in any real information.
In the example, she said, a “predator” can put together a fairly complete picture of a girl named Theresa, including her age, where she lives and where she goes to school. He is able to identify family members and her interests, all of it within 20 minutes.
Pichardo said the Internet exposes children to risks such as exposure to inappropriate material, harassment and bullying, sexual solicitation and theft of personal information.
Pichardo perused a number of children’s profiles on myspace.com by setting her age as 16 in her own profile. She found enough information in most profiles to commit some type of identity theft.
According to the NCMEC, Pichardo said, one in four children have had an unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material. One in five have been sexually solicited. One in 17 have been threatened or harassed, and one in 37 have had an aggressive sexual solicitation.
“This Internet thing is like a child predator’s shopping mall,” she said.
Seventy percent of the solicitations were received while using a computer at home, she said. Of those, 65 percent were in a chat room and 24 percent in instant messages.
Although many of these chat rooms are designed for children, anyone can use them, Pichardo said. “If I were a child predator, I’m going where the kids are.”
She emphasized the importance of children learning how to use their computers.
“We’re a computer-oriented world, and your kids should know how to use the computer,” she said, but they need to be smart about it.
Being smart doesn’t just apply to children, Pichardo said. The site pogo.com is a free gaming site, but it also includes profiles of users.
“It’s amazing what some adults will put in their (profile).”
Popular sites for children include spaces.msn.com, whatsyourstory.msn.com and myspace.com. Pichardo asks whether parents even know what their children’s screen names are.
She recommends establishing rules for the use of computers and the Internet. Parents should establish what sites children can visit, who they can talk to, where they can use computers and how long they can be on-line.
Computers should be kept in a common room, not the child’s bedroom, she said. They should act on-line as they would in the real world, discussing the same things.
In the real world, children are taught never to talk to strangers, Pichardo said. Parents should know who their children are talking to on-line.
Parents should communicate with their children and encourage them to confide in them, she said. Parents also need to be informed about the Internet, learning everything they can, including the abbreviated lingo used on-line, such as POS or “parent over shoulder.”
She suggested parents consider safeguards, such as using monitoring software that can record everything a computer does and then send an e-mail to a parent, or filtering software.
Parents should check their children’s e-mail addresses for propriety, and they should never post them in any directory, Pichardo said. She also suggests not unsubscribing to unwanted e-mails. That can let spammers know they have hit a valid e-mail address.
She recommends not signing up for free things and not forwarding e-mails to “everyone” in an address book.
Websites offering real-life stories and tips on Internet safety include NetSmartzKids.org, safekids.com and getnetwise.org.