Albemarle County has plenty of budget woes. But two activists are asking that officials find more money for law enforcement, to help catch local online predators.
Ed Smart, father of abduction victim Elizabeth Smart, and Camille Cooper, director of legislative affairs for the National Association to Protect Children, were in Albemarle County on Wednesday to make the pitch. The pair had hoped to address the county’s Board of Supervisors, but the supervisors’ meeting was delayed by weather and Smart had to be in Richmond to testify before a legislative committee.
Specifically, Cooper requested a couple of police officers.
“I’d like two dedicated officers, so they [the Board of Supervisors] are going to have to come up with additional resources, not a reallocation of existing law enforcement funding,” she said.
Another $20,000 to $30,000 should go to train and equip them, she said.
“I’m trying to clean up my back yard,” said Cooper, a Charlottesville resident.
Cooper emphasized that she thinks the problem is a lack of resources, not will, at the county’s police department.
“Albemarle County at this point has got to step up,” she said. “This isn’t something that’s happening somewhere else.”
The city has already dedicated resources to the effort, which is run through a regional Internet Crimes Against Children task force.
That happened soon after Cooper took Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris on a tour of the task force office in Bedford County, highlighting the number of predators identified in the local area.
“They showed them the Charlottesville numbers and Dave [Norris] almost had a heart attack,” Cooper said.
Norris said the tour made a big impact.
“It was absolutely eye-opening and disturbing,” he said. “Our police chief, Chief [Timothy J.] Longo, has since come to describe ID’ing these types of offenses as shooting fish in a barrel. They’re much more widespread than any of us might think, and it’s happening here in our community. This isn’t happening hundreds of miles away. It’s happening here in Charlottesville. It’s happening at the University [of Virginia]. It’s happening in Albemarle County.”
Smart was involved with Wednesday’s effort through his service as the president of the Surviving Parents Coalition. His daughter, Elizabeth, was 14 when she was kidnapped from her bedroom in 2002. She was found in March 2003 just miles from her home.
Her father said he thinks child pornography on the Internet is a problem people don’t perceive as local.
“If it was out front, that people knew, … they would be there and they would take action immediately to save these kids from the nightmare that they’re going through,” he said.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement