It’s not just about the park – more and more sex offenders are using different social networking sites as their “playground” to prey on children.
Friday night, the Fairfax County Police used that “playground” to bring parents together for a community meeting on child predators. They used Facebook as one of their mediums to announce their event.
Detectives specializing in crimes against children talked about the myths and realities of “stranger danger” at the Child Safety Symposium at Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, Va. Attendees learned how to investigate their child’s online persona and how child predators use new media such as Facebook to find victims.
“We feel like virtually that’s where people are – their eyes are in the computers, their eyes are online,” said Lucy Caldwell, of Fairfax County police. “Those Facebook pages are constantly being updated.”
She also said the department received a lot of phone calls based on the Facebook announcements. The department plans to hold more community meetings on the subject.
