A man told police his 11-year-old daughter was being manipulated to send a man photos of her. Columbus cops threatened the victim with jail for "making porn"

Another resource: the area children’s advocacy center
https://www.nationalcac.org/find-a-cac/

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Thank you for the link! Around here the are often called CASA or combined with CASA. I’ll edit accordingly

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What the fuck is wrong with these people? Do these cops not have kids? If their kid was in the same situation, is that the stance they would take?

Also if the CP laws aren’t carved out to protect the victims, they should be. An 11 year old can’t consent to anything. They were manipulated. There should be instant protection when it involves minor and an adult.

Threatening A CHILD with breaking the law because they were the victim of manipulation? What the actual fuck?

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I can understand why the dad would call the cops, but street cops in uniform that usually spend their day writing speeding tickets are out of their league with these situations. We can’t expect a lot of good advice from a barber when we have a toothache.

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the one sentence at the start of the op gives me pause:

Man: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole point, I just wanted you guys to come over and talk to her

and the ap article says

The man says he wanted someone to talk to her to get her “to realize what this was” and then suggests “reality is” there isn’t much he can do.

the cop should have told the father, no - this should be investigated, and here’s the resources you need. all the things @Kii said - but the cop appears to be almost colluding ( strong word ) with the father saying, “i can help scare her into stopping.”

it’s a really f’d up situation. the father was probably out of his depth here, which is understandable but his framing is so weird.

eta: @ClutchLinkey put it better than i did

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I can’t. Really. Not to, in his own words, talk to the kid. On my list of people I’d turn to to talk some sense into a kid in that situation, cops would be pretty much at the bottom.
I’m glad he came to his senses and sent them away. ACAB.

As is the fact that the cops came out to talk to a kid, but clearly showed up after bedtime, which…?

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I guess Ohio is serious about claims of child exploitation and is seeking to eliminate them - the claims, that is.

Charitably, the cop misunderstood why he was there, and thought the father brought him in to “scare straight” his daughter out of being groomed. And, charitably, that’s an incredibly fucked-up assumption by the cop. It’s quite the demonstration as to why any interaction with the police is fraught with danger.

Although everything I read about the detectives whose job it is to investigate abuse and SA cases, they’re almost universally the last people you’d want to deal with in that situation. The combination of ignorance and prejudice is incredible.

Odds are good the cops are abusers themselves, so…

Cops show up when they want to show up. I remember my parents talking about the one time they called the cops to report a crime - a burglary (back in the day when cops actually came to take reports for burglary). The cops showed up a day or two later, waking them up at 1 am, treating them like they were the suspects…

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Not only that, but the cop giving the terrible, harmful advice is a woman. AND THEN HER RESPONSE TO THE FATHER AT THE END IS…

Happy Adam Scott GIF by Sky

Man, that burns my biscuits.

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Unfortunately internalized misogyny is real and very common. Some of the worst oppressors of girls in particular are grown women. It’s awful

I probably need an /s on

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You don’t need a /s on that. In a patriarchy, men are never responsible for their own thoughts and actions, only women are responsible. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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Yeah, it’s all on that tempting little 11 yo girl to not flaunt her wares for the online men drawn to it. (Oh God /s and a hot, hot shower please!!)

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I don’t think there is a helpful way to present this information.

If it is a situation where the images were not solicited or it involved another minor, then maybe I can see there being a potential for charges. But that’s not why the dad called police - he was concerned that someone was manipulating his 11 year old daughter. So instead of the police saying “okay, what makes you think this is happening” and trying to get a lead on who the predator might be, they target the victim.

The possibility of charges for her daughter shouldn’t have even been brought up at this stage.

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I think it’s possible to both constructively warn of real legal peril AND to properly investigate the real criminal here.

This cop did neither.

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That’s gotta be a front-runner for “Midwest Nice” of the year.

Since the predator is on the internet, it’s likely an interstate crime, which means they should be bypassing local police and going straight to the feds. Local cops can’t even do anything about it in all likelihood.

ETA: or, all of what @Kii said above!

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There are online child solicitation task forces at the state level too. While they, and the feds, are cops the benefit of going to them is they have the tools necessary to chase down a predators identity and often have ongoing projects where they pretend to be a girl. They would need little more than the social media platform and the predator’s account information.
But I can’t really blame the parent for not knowing this.

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Victim blaming at it’s finest.

That’s what happens when you let the worst and dumbest carry a badge.

Parents probably would have been better off calling a lawyer who could then contact the DA, who, we assume, would at least know the right crimes involved and would have half a brain*

*recent events in IN and TX show that this might not be the case

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Still it’s beneficial to see how unbothered the police seem to be about this on a Ring camera. Attitudes like this among city administrative offices ought to be exposed (no pun intended).

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Those cops also have your extensive legal knowledge

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Attorneys cost money, and I assume these folks wanted to go with the option they have already paid for first (namely municipal law enforcement).
The cops who show up at your door when you call 911 aren’t investigators, they are there to stop a crime in progress. If there is no situation to de-escalate (at best) and no heads to bash (at worst), they aren’t interested. (Even then a lot of them aren’t interested). Call a municipal sex crime detective, call the state police, call the federal police, call your local representative, call the local prosecutor, or call an attorney. Don’t call 911. It’s just how things work in this country.

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