It's happened again, another man has been arrested for trying to meet a 15 yr old teen age girl in person after hooking up with her on Myspace. The arrest happened last night in Rockledge FL. after the teens parents notified the police when they found out about the meeting after finding a excessive phone bill recently. The man contacted the teen through the website several weeks ago then apparently several phone calls were made, the parents got to the bottom of things (Way To Go!) notified police who then set up a meeting with 49 yr old Steven Harrison by having a female officer posing as the teenager. Harrison then drove over 100 miles from Jupiter FL to meet her. Upon his arrest police found his van to have covered windows, bedding, pornography and a disabled latch on the door to make it hard to get out of the van.
Ok, how do we stop this type of thing? My Space has done pretty much all it can short of shutting down its site to try to keep teens safe online. What is next step? My Space can't physically go to each address of each person under the age of 18 and card them, that just isn't possible. Parents really have to keep a better eye on what their children are doing online. Who knows what would have happened to this young 15 yr old girl had her parents not found the phone bill. Think of the internet as a vehicle, would you allow your child to get in a car and not know who is driving? That is basically what you are doing when you allow your child or teen to go online to sites where teens interact. There is absolutely no way of making sure the people your teen is typing to across the internet is actually who they say they are, unless you actually know that person in TRW (the real world)
At ECOPP I have found a list of Parent's Rules N Tools please read them and follow their advice. Also, please read INTERNET DANGERS, this IS NOT a game. This is the real world and the real world is a dangerous place to our children. We as Adults need to be aware of what our children and grandchildren are doing on the internet, we as Adults need to Keep Our Children Safe.
Comments(5)