Officers Highlight High-Tech Skills
As part of National Peace Officers Week, two Central California detectives who work jointly offered a presentation in May on apprehending child predators.
Det. Dave Alcaraz, who specializes in solving sex crimes at the Merced Police Department (MPD), works with Det. Joseph Weiss of the Sacramento Valley High-Tech Crimes Task Force. The two spoke at MPD’s Central Office. Weiss focuses on such crimes as identity theft, online fraud, and online stalking, while Alcaraz targets child pornography and sexual molestation.
Weiss noted that the Internet allows predators to enter into children’s homes without the knowledge of parents. Weiss added that before the high-tech crime task force was created, officers would have to send evidence of stalking or other crimes to the FBI. “Now we have the tools an expertise to get this information early on,” said Weiss.
Alcaraz reminded parents to monitor their children adequately and not to assume they are safe just because they are at home. He advised parents to be aware if their child changes the screen quickly if a parent walks in, and to track what they see online and their activity in chat rooms.
A child who has a computer featuring a Web camera is especially vulnerable, he said, because predators could observe what a child is doing. MPD Cmdr. Tom Martin noted that the department has a program that allows officers to check if the roughly 300 registered sex offenders in Merced are actually residing at the appropriate address.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the Merced Sun-Star (05/19/06); De La Cruz, Mike .