Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Predators Beware Area Agents Target Child Molesters (SB Sun 08042006)

You know that they just got a Teacher that was teaching the children more then just what they wanted to know about the history of this little planet that we live on, he was teaching them of the history of his life, his love life mainly, how sick can you be!! I feel that this guy should be able to be hung by his genitals in the class room in front of the students. He would be clothed, and the children would be in the other room with the exception of the children that he violated, then they could be allowed to watch him squirm while being hung by his genitals.

I don't like anyone like this that is so sick as to pray upon the innocents of a child. it to me is sick. I am sorry, I could not stand working on another one of these cases again, taking the statement of a child, that was sexually active with a man that was over twice their age. Jumped while taking a shower, just after their mother goes to work, and the child molesting boy friend, Jumps into the shower with the girl. Or, Mom goes to work, and Boy firend, who was supposed to be at work already had parked his Big Rig, Truck down the street, suddenly when the Mother goes to work the boy friend gots and Rapes the child when she is gettign ready for School. Mom who doesn't beleive a word of it forces the child to run away to Upland where they used to live and she has a trusted Teacher there where she tells him what happens, and it gets reported.

When Police get involved the Mother hides the boy friend from the Police and the girl is placed n the Child Protective Services for a one week period. and the boy friend is never dumped and nothing. They co-exsist by still living together she just has become sexually active wth her boyfriend of 14 she is 12, and it is a whole sick rotation, not only that but the advances that the boy friend is still placing on the child (12). I was so frustrated with the case trying to find the boy friend, going to the Womans home each night, finding the Girl back at home in a week. and she says it is All Right. Child Protective Services Says, that they cannot place her, because they have no where to make placement for her, with the exception of her Grandmother, and she just takes her back to her mother's house. CPS, says because the Grand Mother Places the Juvenile back with the Mother they will not take her, they have no placement. Then The boy friend that made the violation is still living there adn well the Mother of the Daughter doesn't beleive her that she was Raped and she doesn't beleive that anything happend between her boy friend and her Daughter, so back to Squar One, I talk to Boy Friend on the telephone and he admitts to me Mistakenly on the telephone that he had sex with her and that she was flirting with him and she wanted to have sex so he did it. However he was in Los Angeles when he gave me the statement over the telephone.

Long Story short, even with a statment by the Suspect the District Attorney doesn't want to prosecute since the mother doesn't beleive the daughter that the sexual encounter had happend in the fashioned that she claimed. The Sex Kit proved positive that she had sex that day and they collected Seman, that could have been tested for his blood type or DNA, however the D.A. Wanted to Drop the case. Sick I was sick of working patrol at that time and was looking at Traffic to be a welcomed Change. I had already been to Motor School, and the only thing that was holding them up was placing meon a motorcycle. How did I know that The very motorcycle that I was going to be first assigned was going to kill me. It was only an 1986 Kawi. and it rode great, rebuilt several times and was fast, well pretty fast, but fast doesn't count when yo have a Mazda MPV right in front of you!! LOL

BS Ranch

Article Launched: 8/04/2006 12:00 AM

Predators beware Area agents target child molesters

Stacia Glenn, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

A seedy subculture swimming with child predators is submerged in every community, skulking just beneath the surface of society.

Parents typically think their neighborhoods are safe. They drop the kids off to teachers, priests and Boy Scout leaders without ever doubting their safety. They dismissively shake their heads at the thought someone they know could be abusing youngsters.

But predators don't just lurk in shadows.

Oftentimes they are invited into our homes, looked up to as role models and considered above suspicion. Knowing this, they prey upon the most vulnerable members of society again and again.

Fighting to keep children safe from those who would steal their innocence are agents of Operation Predator, a nationwide Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative formed in 2003 when the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs Service combined their sex- offender programs.

Locally, a tough six-member Inland Empire crew tracks down more than the boogeymen who make children cower in darkness and in dreams.

In the three years since it was formed, agents in the Inland Empire branch have arrested more than 220 men in connection with crimes against children, including possession of child pornography, molestation, human trafficking and sex tourism.

"These are real children and real victims," said Lloyd Schultz, group supervisor for the Inland Empire's Operation Predator office in San Bernardino . "People forget they're not little plastic figures or pictures."

More than half of the caseload for the local Operation Predator office focuses on possession or distribution of child pornography.

It's a ghastly job.

Agents have to spend countless hours watching videos of kids being molested or abused by the very same people who should be protecting them. They have to find a way to separate themselves from the on-screen horror because, as Schultz points out, "Somebody's gotta do it."

High-tech equipment zeros in on the little ones' facial features so they can be added to the National Child Victim Identification System, a database to track victims. Specialists stare intently into the background, looking for any clues as to where the tape was shot.

And they're usually successful.

Operation Predator's Inland Empire office managed to close every case thus far and prosecute each predator.

More than 40 child- exploitation cases have been investigated since 2003, and ICE agents have provided other local agencies with 49 leads.

Currently, 24 cases are being investigated and 10 are in various states of prosecution.

A high-profile case that has sent ripples across San Bernardino and Riverside counties is that of 62-year-old Earl Venton Buchanan, a Bloomington man arrested July 3 after trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border with a 5-year-old boy from Banning on his lap.

Authorities searched his van and found a videotape of Buchanan molesting a small boy. Records show Buchanan admitted to being the man in the video, yet he pleaded not guilty to federal charges of kidnapping, molestation and transportation of child pornography.

Buchanan is counted among the 1,945 arrests made in California since the inception of Operation Predator, which is twice the amount of any other state. The next highest is Texas, where 700 child predators have been nabbed.

"California is one of the most popular states, and we have a significant amount of ICE agents working here," said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice. "It makes sense that with a large amount of ICE agents working in California, you would probably have a significant volume of cases."

Another reason Southern California has more than its share of predators is its closeness to Mexico and the number of foreign nationals who choose to make their homes here.

Several suspects, like Buchanan, have been caught transporting children and child pornography across the border. Some, though not as many, have trafficked kids into another country to sell them for sex.

In the Inland Empire alone, 179 men have been convicted of a sex crime, served their time and been deported to their home country. Fifteen of those were arrested a second time and placed in a federal prison for about 72 months after returning to the United States.

"They just didn't think they'd get caught," said Doraluz Ancona, assistant agent in charge at ICE's local office, shaking her head.

There is no set profile for a child predator, no discernible way of picking them out of a crowd.

They are often pillars of the community.

A sheriff's deputy, minister and teacher have been picked up in the Inland Empire by ICE agents.

A "Dateline" sting in Riverside County earlier this year netted 50 suspected predators in three days, many of them in shockingly respected positions: a high school teacher, a rabbi and a press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. All thought they were coming to have sex with a minor, authorities said.

"These are people who occupy trusted positions in the community," Ancona said.

Holding respectable positions in the community means the case is usually high profile and generates massive amounts of disbelief from those who never suspected.

That is the case with Jon Winningham, a longtime Calimesa councilman who faces 10 felony counts of intent to distribute child pornography and three misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a preliminary hearing in Riverside Superior Court.

Winningham's arrest was not part of Operation Predator.

He was first arrested in October after two men handed police a computer disk with downloaded child pornography images they said came from Winningham's home computer. No charges were filed at that time.

The councilman was arrested a second time in February after forensic specialists said they discovered 1,126 pornographic images on his home computer, city-owned laptop and various computer media.

Many researchers and law-enforcement officials believe possessing and distributing child pornography is increasing because of the Internet.

The National Juvenile Online Victimization Study found 1,713 arrests were made nationally in 2000. An estimated 2,600 arrests were made nationwide in 2001 for Internet-related sex crimes against children, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Operation Predator launched a nationwide sting in 2004, dubbed Operation Falcon, to bring down a commercial child- pornography site where people paid to download images.

Regpay, a Belarus-based Internet billing firm, provided credit- card billing services for 50 child- pornography Web sites around the world.

Out of the 1,200 people arrested, five were from the Inland Empire.

Yet some say sex crimes against kids are decreasing.

There has been a 40 percent decline in the estimated number of child sexual- abuse substantiations since 1992, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center.

The center's director, David Finklehor, said most crime has been declining since 1993.

"People don't feel it or notice it because it's actually being covered more extensively (by the media) than it used to be," he said. "They feel more endangered, but it's actually gone down."

Whether these types of crimes are rising or falling, Inland Empire ICE agents still labor around the clock to bring down child predators.

Their lives are not their own.

Few spend sick days recuperating on the couch. Vacations are ended early by a single call. And forget holidays.

"We will put in whatever time it takes to catch every predator here," Schultz vowed.

When the ICE agents aren't hunched over a computer or tracking down leads, they are shooting at the range, being trained in tactical entry or practicing hand-to-hand combat.

After passing an exhaustive screening process by the Department of Homeland Security, they must spend 22 weeks at a federal law- enforcement training center in Georgia, immersed in customs and immigration law, search techniques and firearms training.

Such a grueling, time-demanding job might chase some off. Witnessing all the atrocities done to kids might scare away others.

So, why do they do it?

"It's a personal satisfaction that I'm giving back to my community," said Ancona, a mother of two. "I want to make sure those kids that are out there are protected as much as possible."

"The biggest motivator is, these aren't ambiguous cases," Schultz said. "There's a cut-and-dried bad guy. There's a cut-and-dried victim. It's gotta be done."

And so, the chain continues.

ICE agents stalk the predators who stalk our children.

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