So, this Ohio dad found out his eleven year old daughter was being groomed by a dude on the internet, and manipulated into creating and sending sexual images of herself to the perp. He did what any of us would do (provided we didn’t have an address for the perp… lots of options when you know that… but I digress): he called the police.
Watch the video. I cannot EVEN. The cops say, and I quote, “I mean, she could probably get charged with child p*rn.”
I’m sorry, the ELEVEN YEAR OLD?
First, under the age of consent in a state (generally around 16, tho a bit higher and lower in various places), a child cannot consent. Therefore, they can’t be involved in sexual things by choice. Second, the unknown male perp should be getting charged with something, that’s for sure, and those cops should have been asking questions about him! Third, I don’t know that I’d have had the calm that father did, in just shutting the door and walking away. Good f’ing grief.
For those who may not know, CSAM means Child S*xual Abuse Material, and it’s a term used to differentiate between porn (which is legal and done between consenting adults) and child abuse (which cannot be consented to).
Not a lawyer, but I have read of this before. Due to extremely poorly written laws, there are many jurisdictions, where anyone who produces CSAM is guilty of making it, and of sending it. Sometimes with mandatory prosecution. Now why the police officer would bring that up at that point is beyond me that is a matter for lawyers.
Chatted with the missus about this, and her take is that if the state mandates prosecution, then the daughter could be held criminally liable, and once an official report is made it’s out of the officers’ hands; it’s not their decision at that point. The officer may have been warning the dad that moving forward could cause more damage to their family than it would to the groomer.
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Given the officer’s condescending tone, I want to disagree, but I acknowledge the possibility.
Unacceptable. Seriously, not acceptable at all.
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Cops should realize that child predators are adept at bypassing parental guidance, they are adept at manipulating the trust of children. They thrive on being able to fool children into trusting them. If this girl was 15, maybe she was a willing participant in it. Maybe… (Even if the law says otherwise). But, an 11 year old is not.
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And the cops should know that. End of story.
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A mid teen would be reasonably expected to know sharing pictures of them less than fully clothed with internet friends is stupid. That friend is not just playing. An 11 year old cannot reasonably be expected to have her guard up against that kind of manipulation. And, far too many parents do not want to ruin their child’s innocence by bringing in that reality too early in their life. That is why monitoring what your children do is so important. (And, kudos to dad for trying to do the right thing and get the computer experts involved.)
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What the cops did was out of line by any rational definition. If this was a 26 year old with a 55 IQ, they would not have said that. If it were a five year old, same thing. So, why is an 11 year old considered to be sharing child porn?
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We need more female police because female police are naturally more empathetic and sensitive to women and children.
/sarc
I hope someone professional from the Columbus PD did follow up.
Columbus PD and professional are two words that do not go together. They had to disband their vice squad more than once due to rampant abuse and corruption of the officers.
During the Summer of Peace they even shot chalk and pepper ball rounds at people sitting on their porch or in their yards when they didn’t go inside when illegally told to by police.
Clearly the cops involved in this need to be summarily fired for cause, the cause being that they are mentally defective.
I saw that video. I guess they didn’t want to investigate and figured by threatening the parent with the arrest of their daughter that the parents wouldn’t want to press charges and therefore the cops could go back to not doing police work.
Why did you censor sexual? Can we please not censor words and follow the trend of dilluting and confusing meaning and intent by censoring words?
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Also, man how do the police just keep taking L after L after L.
He had to censor several words so that the content algorithms wouldn’t limit his audience. The goal is to spread the word as far and wide as possible, and getting flagged for “sexual content” — even if it’s just literal use of the word “sexual” — severely limits the reach.
That doesn’t make sense since I doubt that Miguel, Jkb, or AWA would censor the post or hide it in anyways from the word sexual, and that this blog is getting picked up in “the content algorithms” to begin with.
If it was posted to numerous places, copy and paste style, point taken and understood.
I’ve just seen this a few times in relation to sexual assault and words around it for a variety of reasons; most of which don’t make sense to me. You can’t go and talk about a thing by not using the word for the thing.