2 years ago
ShareIn Today's Living, a friend who's number one goal is to protect kids. This friend is part of a special task force reaching out to stop on-line child sex predators.
"Well I would hope that it would stop them or at least give them a moment of pause that this kid is at least in contact with the police," says Paul Farnstrom with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in Oregon.
It's called Intercept and authorities in Portland, Oregon hope kids will make them their "friend" on their MySpace page to scare away online predators.
Farnstrom says, "It's invaluable because without that we wouldn't be able to get online and into the pool of predators that we would be able to without the access of the internet."
If the Intercept task force badge doesn't deter predators kids can contact the task force, for example by instant messaging. The page is monitored by detectives and once they receive the report they can take the appropriate action. In fact, they say it's already protecting kids. Intercept was used to arrest a 47-year-old after they say he contacted a 13-year-old online and traveled to meet her.
