Operation Seek and Ye Shall Find Out – Another sting, another press release.
Another sting and another press release. This time out of Marion County, Florida. Weeks after posting “Operation: Obvious Trap (aka “How Are People Still Falling for This?”)” comes another sting. Notably, there were no people already on the registry who were caught.
People need to stop falling for these traps. You hear the press conference, you see the mugshots, but you don’t get to hear what led up to the arrests.
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This is NOT a sting, it is entrapment.
Here is the definition of entrapment :
Noun
The act of a law enforcement official luring a person into committing a crime, so that the person can be prosecuted.
These are 18 and over websites NOT 17 and under, therefore law enforcement should NOT have any jurisdiction to go to these websites to lure someone into a relationship that the website is NOT designed for and that the patrons there are also believing everyone there is 18 or over.
I don’t know anyone who goes into a bar hoping to socialize with someone under 21, because that is the age limit of the establishment.
The same kind of tactic could be used with a wallet that has $1500 in cash in it and has a fake ID with a gps chip purposefully left on the ground by the police in a park under video surveilance to see who picks up the wallet and steals the money, or takes off with it, and then the police catch them with it and arrest them for theft.
That is luring someone into committing a crime, and then prosecuting them, and that is entrapment, and that is what law enforcement is doing on these 18 and over websites;they are luring people into committing a crime they were not intending to commit the same as people don’t go to a park looking to find a wallet with someone else’s money.
There are people who might say, ‘you shouldn’t have fell for it’, and they are right and if this was a perfect world, people wouldn’t, but here is a news flash-this is NOT a perfect world, and it is WRONG for anyone, especially law enforcement, to exploit human imperfection, which we ALL have, in order to make an arrest.
None of us is perfect, no one, it’s just a matter of where each one’s imperfections lie, and what situations cause them to manifest themselves, and given the right situation they will.
Just how much did this press conference cost the tax payers? lets see, paying all these people, the room they hold this in, the ac cost as the door is going open and shut more, the flyers / booklets that was provided to people attending, the media that video was put on, the time, money, computing power, etc,,, to print these flyers / booklets, and to put video on media. All for what at the end of the day? so they can grandstand and give themself s a pat on the back? what a waste of $$$ it’s time they are held to accountability; physical, mentally and financially!
WHAT A BUNCH OF BS!
Why dont they go after impaired driving? i’m a victim of an impaired driver! ruined my career, i was making good money and became disabled at age 45 right when i was entering my prime earning years!, only to have to worry about food, shelter, keeping lights on, not being able to hardly move, body is wasting away and the more it wastes away do to inactivity the more i hurt and my health declines rapidly, not being able to have any quality of life! and this survivor of sexual abuse ended up on the hit list cause someone LIED ABOUT THEIR AGE! AND IN FLORIDA AND SEVERAL OTHER STATES IF SOMEONE LIES OR MIS REPRESENTS THEIR AGE, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE THAT AS A DEFENSE! even if they show you id weather a fake one they bought somewhere or showed you someone else’s id you are prohibited by law to use that as a defense!
SO AS A VICTIM AND SURVIVOR OF SEXUAL ABUSE AS A TEENAGER. that has had 10000000 x less effect on me then being a VICTIM OF AN IMPAIRED DRIVER!
SO, in summary, all you haters out there STOP DRINKING THE KOOLAID AND DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY OF OR GOVERNMENT INSTEAD OF DRINKING THE KOOLAID THINKING THE BOGGY MAN IS HIDING IN THE BUSH AT THE PARK. BUT IS ACTUALLY THE cop next door or at the school, or coach there not on some perceived list! get with the program! and if you still wanna come here hatting then FU and i hope you rot in that special place that i associate a person in red with horns, pitch fork and a tail!!!! Because you think it’s ok to put people that for the most part on a preceived very bad boogy man list that and we are waiting around the corner to jump out a rape you! Please research the facta very few is like that maybe 5% cause if it was true in part the recidivism rate for a new sex offence would be high and that simply is not true! even state and federal government have reports out with those percentages! then a bunch more will include things like not reporting your mom or dads car when they visited you for 2 or 3 days during the holidays, or starting a new job and can’t get a day off right away to drive an hour to the police and wait there who knows how long to report that you have a new job so your arrested with a felony and are sent to prison for 5 years! yes this stuff does happen and it’s reality! all while these impaired drivers are still out there and nothing is getting done!
The hit list is nothing more then SMOKE & MIRRORS! AN ILLUSION! A FALSE PERCEPTION! STOP DRINKING THE KOOLAID! DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!
WELL AFTER 25 YEARS ON THE HIT LIST I JUST FINALLY TOLD YOU LIKE IT IS AND GUESS WHAT! I’M PROUD OF IT! AND I WOULD TELL THIS TO YOUR FACE OR ON STAGE AT A CROWED ROOM! I suffer more and more each and every day being a victim of a impaired driver then being a victim of a sex offender!
sorry, well not really!
Hey all. So here is my take and I watched the presser. First let me start by saying this. I dont have any social media accounts. It should be about insulating ourselves from any attempt to trap us. But here is the kicker, none of them were on the registry so once again the registry didnt assist law enforcement. Secondly, as soon as LEO states they are underage, all conversation should end. Thirdly, and they even made it clear, Parents should know what their kids are up to. Not because of me but solely my wife and the good Lord above, I raised 3 wonderful girls in the last 30 years I have been on death row. There were a lot of good points made in that presser. Starting with the parents should always be the first line of defense. To the fact that these guys could have stopped conversating, but they chose not to.
Wow – probably the most brazen PR campaign I’ve seen so far. You can’t buy this kind of attention. Any public disdain or distrust which may be present is wiped away. It’s interesting. It’s obvious the Sheriff is not concerned at all about following the law or making sure these cases are proper for the Court Think about it. Publicly displaying mugshots in a live press conference, calling them “vile individuals” and identifying which guy was chatting with a male and which ones with a female in an effort to tell the public, “your boys are in danger too” all before ever setting foot in a courtroom??!! He’s made almost impossible for any defendant to get a fair trial. It’s sick. For these reasons I will not be surprised if many of these cases are dismissed. We can only hope that they fight their case and not be too quick to take a plea. As for the public, I am writing on every message board I can find: Relax, this is a public sex panic meant only to serve as a PR campaign for law enforcement. High school teenagers, especially boys, aren’t on Snapchat looking to meet and have sex with ugly old men. Police exploit the precious safety of our kids in order to remain beloved by the public – THAT’S how they “get through it,” Sheriff,
Please whenever, wherever you can speak the truth behind these sickening stings operations.
Marion county is one of a few counties of the 67 counties in Florida that are the top 10 sting operation winners. They have been doing these for several years now and I see them on the news at least once a month parading the photos of people they caught and arrested for a crime that did not exist because there was no real victim.
Sadly, judges allow stings and set ups just like they use to do with drug busts back in the 1980s when I was a cop. Dress up like a dealer and make the sale then call it in on the radio and 5 minutes later they are slammed to the ground. The cocaine they sold was sugar and the weed was often oregano. So, so many of those cases got thrown out if they had a good lawyer. With these sex stings, you might get some help with a lawyer, but still going to end up on the registry.
Then they show the fame of shame board of people they caught calling them scum bags, pedophiles and other names, even before they have seen a judge. Guess there is no due process anymore.
People need to stop committing sex crimes and there will be no issues.
Nancy
One thing that could happen is that law enforcement could end these stings that create crimes. Put more effort into prevention and mental health care. But then they can’t mug for the camera.
Nancy, so you understand how these “stings’ work. The law enforcement officer creates a profile on a site that is intended for people 18 years and over. A person begins a conversation with the officer still believing the person they are talking too is at least 18 then at some point the officer says an age under 18. If the person tries to disengage, the officer will try to appeal to their empathy claiming they are just looking for a friend, are suicidal, and in some cases don’t reveal they are underage until the person has already left to meet up. I’m not saying all the people caught up in these stings are innocent, but the tactics are extremely questionable. Mostly they target people with mental health and emotional issues, and it is highly unlikely these people would have sought out a minor since they were on adult site to begin with. It’s a stretch to call these people predators because predators actively look for prey.
You are exactly right. More effort by law enforcement should be targeted to prevention not entrapment.
Well stated. Thank you for you comments.
Love you Gail. Happy to preach the truth.
Right, which is why our law enforcement civil servants never want to show the public the chat transcripts, because their lies would be exposed. Hold them accountable too people!
True, and world peace needs to occur…and an end to hunger, worldwide…and an end to environmental pollution. … sigh … These are all deep and pervasive worldwide phenomena.
@Nancy
I heartily agree!!
People need to stop committing ALL crimes and the world would be a MUCH better place to live!!
People also need to stop making useless laws such as the registry that do NOT protect anyone and do NOT prevent crime which operations like this prove its uselessness and instead focus on educating their children that Susan on Facebook might be Shawn and be proactive in who their chldren are talking to online and even meet them!!
Also, they need to instruct them that if anyone touches them where they shouldn’t regardless if it is a family member, doctor, teacher, gym coach, clergy, etc. they are to tell even if threatened, because these people are where nearly all offenses come from and NOT from people on the registry!!
Not a one of these was on the registry.
@DVC
But then how would the police departments make sooo much money, like they do now through ICAC funding to run these stings. Plus they get so many cudo’s from the public, for a “job well done” and they look like hero’s. Just sickens me!
I think we all agree with you there, Nancy, and no one “feels sorry” or condones this behavior. It’s wrong. Don’t do it.
But it seems the Public is never given an opportunity, as outsiders looking in, that this is so much more about mental illness, despair, effects of trauma, family issues, life stresses and their own suffering from abuse. Everyone wants to be loved, to be liked, to be desired. These guys found themselves in a situation where they say to themselves, look wow, this good looking person likes ME, wants to be with Me, wants to meet ME and the fact that they are in high school. (yes a minor obviously) gets quickly pushed aside in favor of wanting to overcome, to feel better these other things.
It may be a sappy, overly sympathetic way of interpreting this, and this sting especially has troubled me, but I’ve come to believe that this is closer to the truth. Much closer than a public warning of “Monsters on the Internet waiting to rape a child.” If we keep talking, keep speaking up, the tide will change. The Truth always prevails in the end.