Raising awareness about child exploitation, cyberbullying

SEELEY LAKE – "Has any one been offered money from the Nigerian Prince?" Missoula County Sheriff's Office Detective Garrett Van Hoose asked Seeley-Swan High School students. While his question was met with laughter, Van Hoose continued with a serious conversation about child exploitation through the Internet, cyberbullying and their effects at a presentation at SSHS Feb. 22.

In his nearly 20 years in law enforcement and the last five with the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Van Hoose has investigated more than 100 individual cases of online child exploitation including cases from every community in Missoula County.

"It doesn't matter where you are at geographically, this is a problem," Van Hoose said. "It is not isolated and we are not isolated. The Internet connects us to everyone in the world. Because of that we have this issue that we have to deal with."

Multiple times throughout his presentation, Van Hoose emphasized that it is not the youth's fault. Instead they are the victim and are the one being exploited.

"It may be an error that you made with the Internet and something that has been done but understand, the person on the other end that is pushing you towards that," Van Hoose said. "They are good at what they do. They understand human nature and they know how we think. They exploit that and they exploit you. Anything that happened or happens with the Internet is not your fault and we need to figure out how to hold that other person accountable."

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) Statistics, in 2020 there were 21.7 million CyberTipLine reports worldwide. Of those, 21.4 million were reports by electronic service providers including Google, Facebook, Instagram and nearly half of these reports came from the United States.

Thanks to the COVID pandemic forcing everyone online for school and work, Van Hoose said there was a 97.5% increase in online enticement reports from 2019 to 2020. While students are back to school, nearly every hand was raised when Van Hoose asked who had a cell phone.

"They have access to you 24/7. They can get into your world without any problem. You go home, shut the front door but they are still in your home with [you] because you are connected to the Internet," Van Hoose said. "The Internet is forever. Once it is out there, it is out there."

Van Hoose said while there is nothing inherently wrong with the Internet, people can use is for good or bad. People's natural desire to connect to others can be enhanced by the Internet and social media but it can also be exploited.

Van Hoose talked about relationships at the high school level. He cautioned the students from sharing sexually explicit images or videos with their significant other.

"Today's boyfriend or girlfriend may not be tomorrow. You don't want to give somebody something of yourself that can be used as a weapon against you later."

According to Teen Sexing research 2016-2019 presented on cyberbullying.org, 24% of teens have been asked to send sexually explicit images and 14% reporting sending sexually explicit images to older students.

Van Hoose presented a "classic grooming" case that happened in the Seeley-Swan several years ago. The 34-year-old perpetrator reached out to a 15-year-old girl through social media after reading some of her writings that she published online. He started with polite conversation, befriended the victim, built a connection through common interest, started introducing personal relationships and intimate topics and then drove to meet her in Missoula where they met. The perpetrator was caught and is now serving time in federal prison.

"I don't give any real fault to her because he was good at what he did. He was good at exploiting," Van Hoose said. "She felt isolated, her stories were a way to communicate to the world who she was and he took advantage of that [weakness and insecurity]."

He has also seen the situation with "deep fakes," video or images where the perpetrator take someone's image and impose it onto someone else's body, turn into exploitation. In one case study he presented, a 52-year-old male who was pretending to be a 19-year-old super model, contacted a 16-year-old boy. Once the 52-year-old obtained a picture of the 16-year-old's face, he put on sexually explicit images and demanded money from the 16-year-old to avoid the fake photos being released to family and friends. The victim reported the extortion efforts to his parents who contacted law enforcement. They found the perpetrator in Georgia via digital information.

Van Hoose encouraged students to reach out to someone they can be open and honest with if they get in a situation where someone has something on them and are demanding money or other things.

"I can't stress it enough, no one is going to look at you and blame you for this person that was able to exploit you, that was able to figure out how to get inside your head and use an interest or a concern for some life experience to get at you," Van Hoose said.

Van Hoose also discussed bullying and specifically cyberbullying.

According to the National Center for Education, in 2019 one in five middle and high school students reported being bullied. Cyberbullying has doubled from 18% in 2007 to 37% in 2019. According to the Federal commission on School Safety, over 60% reported that that has impacted their ability to learn and feel safe in school.

Van Hoose said bullying and cyberbullying has been shown to cause an increased risk of low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, not performing well in school or dropping out completely and school violence. Those that experience bullying are also most likely to self-harm and are two times as likely to attempt suicide.

"If you are not that person but you know who is, be that friend, be that person who steps up for them and looks out for them at the end of the day," Van Hoose said. "We are all individuals going through life but we are all part of the same human race and we have to work together and help each other when we hit a rough spot."

Van Hoose empowered the students by telling them that they may be the best informer for someone who may feel like they are at the end and suicide it their only option. He also encouraged the students to not discriminate against others.

"Can we agree that treating someone for anything other than, as Martin Luther King said, 'The content of their character' is not okay?" Van Hoose asked. His question was met with a series of nods.

Van Hoose presented several resources that are helpful to students.

He recommended First STEP Resource Center, a National Children's Alliance-accredited children's advocacy center at Providence St. Patrick Hospital. First STEP has specially trained nurses to talk with youth up to age 18 to help work through life's challenges. Call 406-329-5776 or visit providence.org/locations/mt/st-patrick-hospital/first-step-resource-center

If someone is being exploited online, they can report it to NCMEC by calling 1-800-843-5678. Tips can be made anonymously. There is also the National Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-8255, or students can reach directly out to Van Hoose by calling the Sheriff's Office 406-258-4810 and ask for him.