Washington state task forces nab 60+ child-sex predators
02/06/2017 3:56 pm PST
It's a coast-to-coast epidemic: predators preying on kids. And one of the cities leading a massive crackdown on these flesh-hunters is Seattle, Washington .
Crime Watch Daily rides along with their task force on a record-setting roundup of this nation's worst.
Some of them are already terrifyingly close to your kids; others are even closer, holding potential victims in the palm of their hands.
"If your kid has a cellphone, you should be worried about it," KCPQ-TV Special Project Correspondent Brandi Kruse.
Autumn in the state of Washington state: school is in session and potential predators are on the prowl.
Elementary-school bus driver Ian Moore, 29, works for the Edmonds School District driving special-needs kids. And on one particular afternoon, at around 4 p.m., Moore is about to drop off his last student when he sends a text: "Yes dropping 1 student off and heading to you."
His next stop? Attempted sex with a 15-year-old girl. The bus driver first met his 15-year-old prey just hours earlier when he responded to her online message, which read: "Bored and yng Want to have fun."
Within minutes of his last text to the 15-year-old, the alleged predator behind the wheel doesn't even go back to get his own car for his potentially deviant date. He parks the school bus at the bottom of a dead-end street and hurries out.
Moore doesn't get that date with a 15-year-old girl; instead he's greeted by officers with badges. They are detectives from Project Anvil, just one of many undercover child-sex-sting operations currently snaring alleged predators in the state of Washington.
"They're usually within a short drive or short distance away from the location where they're going to have sex," said Seattle Police Captain Mike Edwards, who heads up an Internet Crimes Against Children task force.
In this same bust, detectives nab another suspected sex predator. He's a 7th-grade teacher working at Alderwood Middle School in Lynwood, Wash., named Bryson Condotta. He too, thinks he's communicating with a teenage girl, this time through a cellphone messaging app.
"Along with those apps are people who are looking for kids, and know how to exploit those kids," said Capt. Edwards.
The 7th-grade teacher sends this message: "Imagine if u were in my classroom, yikes." And in another he writes, "Just sayin what it would be like with u in class, too tempting."
Bryson Condotta and Ian Moore have each been charged with one count of attempted rape of child in the third degree and one count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. Both have entered pleas of not guilty, both have posted bond and both are scheduled for trial in March.
But while it's horrifying these two alleged child sex predators worked within school districts, the reality is your child is potentially in danger anywhere they can get a signal on their cellphones.
Sergeant Carlos Rodriguez of Washington State Patrol's Missing and Exploited Children Task Force knows firsthand the demand for sex with children.
"We posted an ad, we had over a hundred responses in less than 10 minutes," said Rodriguez.
Because he's on the front lines fighting for the young victims, Sgt. Rodriguez works with Operation Net Nanny.
"Operation Net Nanny is a series of undercover stings that were put on by the Washington State Patrol Missing and Exploitive Children Task Force," said reporter Brandi Kruse.
And sting operations like Net Nanny have a big, scary job ahead: The FBI reports at least 750,000 predators are online at any given second. But that doesn't deter law enforcement agents who are determined to find justice for the young and vulnerable.
"Really what these task forces and these stings are about is eliminating the demand," said Kruse. "If you can try and eliminate the demand, or even scare people into stopping what they're doing. If you have stories like this that are going to be on TV, maybe you have a predator out there who sees it and decides, 'You know what? I don't want to get caught up in one of those undercover stings, so I'm just going to stop.'"
So how do you keep your kids safe from something that's literally at their fingertips?
Seattle Police Captain Mike Edwards, who heads up an Internet Crimes Against Children task force, one of more than 60 nationwide, says it's up to the parents to know every app on their child's phone, and how they work.
But while not every child has a solid parent in his or her corner, investigators from undercover operations like these in Washington state plan to stay vigilant.
"The driving force for all of us is there's a kid out there, there's a child out there that needs to be found and needs to be rescued, and there is a suspect that's got to go to jail," said Edwards.
To date, Operation Net Nanny has resulted in more than 60 suspected child sex predator arrests and 18 children rescued in Washington.
