Protect Cullman’s children, but stop hiding the playbook
No one should mistake this position for sympathy toward anyone who attempts to prey on a child.
If a person knowingly seeks sexual contact with a minor, communicates with someone he believes to be a minor or travels to meet a child for an unlawful sex act, that person should be investigated, arrested, prosecuted and, if convicted, punished to the fullest extent of the law. Protecting children is not optional. But protecting children also cannot become a public relations exercise where the public is told to applaud arrests while being denied basic answers about how an operation was conducted, who controlled it and what public safety benefit it produced for the community where it was staged. That is the concern with the recent Cullman operation involving the Cullman Police Department, Cullman County District Attorney’s Office and Covenant Rescue Group, a private nonprofit that assists law enforcement with child exploitation operations. The March operation resulted in five arrests. According to the public information released at the time, the men arrested were listed from Killen, Somerville, Maylene, Hamilton and Toney. None were listed as Cullman residents. That matters. If Cullman police and prosecutors were investigating local offenders preying on local children, that is one thing. If an outside organization and local law enforcement created an operation that drew men from across the region into Cullman, that raises a different set of questions. Why Cullman? Were these suspects already targeting children in Cullman County? Were they communicating with people they believed were local children? Were online profiles, ads or decoy accounts placed in a way that specifically drew suspects into Cullman? Who initiated the conversations? Who controlled the undercover communication?
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We just made a post about how this group, Covenant Rescue, lures the men. We have someone in our group who is very familiar with how this group does this. This is what it looks like:
http://youtube.com/post/Ugkx_IhjjbZo2vcJfRovcL4al0bUbNvf3X2H?si=8hNL7GyYc6ugXD49
This is what they call catching child predators.
@A
Law enforcement should be informed of this group
Jack, the source article identifies this group as a partner with law enforcement. Do you think there’s something about this group that law enforcement is not already informed about?
Also, the playbook they are using is to use laws that include a phrase about “believed age” to criminalize the online sexual conversations that consenting adults engage in as role play or that are meant to be fantasy based. Fantasy, exaggeration, deception, or the adoption of fictional personas, are common features of online sexual communication in the online hookup culture. This is supposed to be protected speech, but because the government is allowed to treat this protected speech as “conduct” vs speech – specifically conduct for the purpose of supposedly attempting to SA a minor – states and the federal government have been allowed over and over again to violate the first amendment right of so many men who engaged in these online role play conversations.
When two consensual people find each other online to engage in a casual sexual interaction (one who solicited that online sexual interaction and the other voluntarily participated in that sexual conversation), it does not matter who either of the two people involved are or who they claim to be. The sexual conversation that takes place is meant to be role play. It’s a kink for engaging strangers in a sexual interaction. It’s not about coercion and neither one has to persuade the other to engage in this interaction.
However, in these sting operations, many times the adult decoys, who are supposed to be playing the role of a vulnerable minor who cannot consent to sex, are the ones persuading the men to engage in this sexual conversation, and because these online sexual interactions are meant to be role play, many of the men will engage in those conversations even though the adult decoy claimed to be underage. What matters is that the adult decoy clearly showed that they were a consensual person who was seeking to meet a man to engage in a sexual interaction.
Under the law, a minor cannot consent to sex. A minor is someone who would need to be solicited, persuaded, enticed, or coerced to participate in sex with an adult. Therefore, someone who is actively seeking to meet a man to engage in such sexual interaction is NOT going to be a minor, because according to the law, a minor is simply not capable of that. A minor would not be actively seeking sex with adult strangers. They would have to be influenced, talked into, or coerced.
So, in these online situations, it would have to be a consensual adult who is role playing for sexual purposes, or it would be a minor who is role playing for catfishing purposes – (to set up the man, maybe to try to assault or rob them, etc.) The bottom line is that online conversation or text conversation is meant to be role play because it is two strangers engaging in a consensual sexual interaction. Nothing is real until the two people meet in person, and only then can they decide if there will be further sexual engagement. That is how the online hookup culture works. Therefore, the conversations that take place before meeting in person are free SPEECH not conduct and especially not an attempt to SA a minor.
Isn’t it ironic for adults to claim that a minor would want to seek adult strangers online for sexual purposes, simply because those minors supposedly have a desire for that, and at the same time those adults who use this logic want to accuse others of having immoral thoughts about minors or having such struggles?
The bottom line is that to fix this constitutional issue with these laws is that either the phrases about “believed age” must be removed from them, or these laws need to prohibit adult decoys from soliciting or volunteering to engage in online sexual interactions with other adults who were clearly seeking those consensual sexual interactions, and if an adult decoy introduced the age of a minor AFTER they solicited or volunteered to engage in that online sexual interaction, then conversation must be acknowledged as protected speech and not be treated as conduct that shows an attempt to supposedly SA a minor. The number one reason the men will show up to meet this person is to confirm their identity and/or confirm the situation, which is not even close to being the same thing as “attempting to SA a minor”, but the government has been allowed to treat those two very different motives as if they are the same thing. The government is not required to prove or disprove a defendant’s actual intent because these laws are written in a way that allows convictions without resolving that question.
Interesting read.
What bothers me is the Email attacks of porn spam that never occurred before; AFTER submission of my email address.
This has to be a targeted attack by law enforcement or multiple groups who think they are doing gods work.
I’m not sure what happened to the Rule of Law. Or why the police are able to attack.
They will never stop doing this tactic. Everyday is a spam attack of nasty porn emails.
I don’t do porn. My wife sees what’s happening. She’s not impressed by these tactics. She just prays I get back off the registry again.
Retroactive relisted after 2 decades removed. Legislation in Florida has locked me out of relief. Which passed after I was released from registry.
Ron Kleiner is putting together a plan of relief if we can keep our heads above water until it comes. Need more people in the same boat.
Pisses me off everyday being relisted. It’s a punishment. My anxiety and anger are off the charts.
Listening to neighbors hurl drunken insults and yelling death threats at my family.
I have no words to express my grief.
The world can kiss my ass. Florida has had many legislators that belong on this list and probably protect others close to them. Law enforcement is highly suspicious and corrupt the constitution by these attacks.
I’m not impressed with the tactics. I’m just to old for stupid stuff. 30 years ago I got fooled by a younger girl. Today I’m married. Where do we draw the line of distinction?
Due process does not exist. Rule of law has been broken.
The War on Sex drags on.
Repeal SORNA. Repeal Florida retroactive laws that walk around the State and Federal Constitution. This is ridiculous.
I believe we should be pushing for full transcripts of these conversations after all these operations. It will definitely shine some light on their shady tactics and maybe damage public support for this foolishness.
Agree, but that will never happen. If it did, they would have to answer questions like:
1. Are there any “successful” stings where communication began on Facebook, Roblox, or child-targetting sites?
2. Why are you looking for child predators on adult dating and escorts sites?
3. When private citizens do these stings, why aren’t they arrested for child exploitation or endangerment? If non-existence isn’t a defense for the targets of the sting, please explain the logic of how/why it is perfectly acceptable for private citizens to exploit and/or endanger non-existent children.
4. How is it that despite all those arrests, there is absolutely no change in the rate of child sex crime commission?
Can’t defense attorneys push for exculpatory evidence (including complete chat logs)?
If the person accused initiates the conversation vs law enforcement initiating the conversation and continuing it. Fine line between the person desiring to commit a crime and entrapment.