Lexington officer patrols Internet
in search of child sex predators
In response to local parental concerns about Internet safety, the Lexington Police Department launched a special investigation last year to search for online predators.
The current investigations have moved from targeting sites like MySpace and Facebook to a more comprehensive search for online predators.
Lexington Police Officer Nathan Kesterson is the sole investigator in the area. He has aided authorities in two investigations in the past year.
Kesterson said that there are two goals of the investigations: to catch the offender and to protect the kids. His boss, Police Chief Steve Crowder, agreed.
"The point of this investigation is to blanket the country with resources and agencies all working toward the same good," Crowder said.
However, investigations are not typically geared toward catching local predators.
"Statistically, you're just not going to catch people in your town," Kesterson said.
When Kesterson is actively pursuing a case, he spends several hours a day online, pretending to be a young teenager or preteen. Using this strategy, he enters chat rooms intended for kids, such as Playstation. He then waits for others to message him; he does not initiate contact.
After giving his sex, location and a false age, he said, he gets one of two responses from potential predators. He is told he is "too young," or they start to talk. This kind of talk usually leads to the swapping of photographs. Kesterson sends old photographs of police officers when they were children; the person he is talking to usually sends pornographic images.
He said it is pretty easy to nab people for misdemeanors such as sending those pornographic images, which is considered contributing to the delinquency of a minor. However, Kesterson doesn't go after the predator until the predator has committed a felony, by asking to have sex with someone the predator believes to be a minor.
Kesterson stressed the importance of remaining in character. He plays a naïve young person and has to make sure the information he writes in one conversation continues into another.
"The people who are out there do their research to try to make sure you're who you say you are," Kesterson said.
Right now, Kesterson is trying to close three cases, none involving local predators. He said he has engaged in conversation in chat rooms with people from this area, but nothing has ever panned out.
Kesterson acknowledges such investigations are tedious and time consuming. But to him, they are worth it.
"This is a huge, huge problem that needs to be addressed," he said. "Hopefully [the potential offender] will solicit one of us before one of the children."
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