Thank goodness for Grady Judd!

Sheriff Judd arrested 17 people in “Operation Child Protector” which ran from July 27 through Aug. 1. The sting created a revenue stream for central Florida by generating a purported 49 felonies and two misdemeanours, including “travelling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery, use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of material harmful to a child.” (1)

There was, not surprisingly, a press conference where Judd eloquently described those arrested as “incredible deviants,” “dangerous,” and “nasty, nasty, nasty people.”(3) In the article the fact that these stings use online dating sites to entice men to show up was downplayed, but surprisingly acknowledged. Mugshots and personal information was flaunted in Judd’s media postings, even though these men have yet to be convicted of any crime. A vision of the old time pillory, used to shame and punish, whirls through my head, complete with the angry mob throwing rotten vegetables at the accused, for sport and entertainment. Have we really come very far from sixteenth century England?

“We threw the bait out in the water … and you bit the bait. What we didn’t do is take this big net … grab you and then stick the bait in your mouth.” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, on child sex stings (2)

Sheriff Grady believes posting innocuous ad’s on adult dating sites doesn’t constitute a ‘big net’. Knowing that people searching for legal, adult interaction are the number one users of ADULT dating sites, I’m not sure how else to describe that net other than BIG and WIDE.

The articles bombarding the internet concerning this particular sting also tout that purportedly 3 of those arrested worked at Disney – an obvious attempt to scare the public into thinking people bent on child sexual abuse have a devious master plan. While true that there are unsavory persons, both actively seeking, and situationally not adverse to a sexual encounter with a child, implying those people are rampant among Disney employees is entirely unfounded.

A quick review of Walt Disney Company’s hiring practices through the job search website “Indeed” verifies that Disney background checks it’s employees. (4) In fact, Disney has one of the strictest policies on hiring, for obvious reasons. Following a 2014 investigation of Disney employees, Disney posted the following statement: “Providing a safe environment for children and families is a responsibility we take very seriously,” a Disney spokeswoman said in a statement to CNN. “We have extensive measures in place, including pre-employment and ongoing criminal background checks and computer monitoring and firewalls. The numbers reported by CNN represent one one-hundredth of one percent of the 300,000 people we have employed during this time period. We continue to work closely with law enforcement and organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as we constantly strengthen our efforts.”(5)

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, that article also points out that Universal Studios fired an employee, caught in a sting, as proof that they too take public safety seriously. It does not mention if that person was tried and convicted of the crime.

The Epoch Times article stated that “nine of them have criminal histories” yet you can be sure none of them had previous sex offenses. That would have been the headline. So again, we are talking about arresting and prosecuting 27 persons, with no history of child sexual exploitation, caught potentially on adult dating sites.

The article states law enforcement officers posed as children, yet it does not say that the ads responded to specifically mentioned children. As we know, often police post normal looking ads, change the age(s) after contact is made, and then claim the arrestees were
‘looking for children’. Articles like these remind me that the spin from police is intentional, to steer public opinion in a self serving direction. Public shaming skirts the truth, in this case specifically pointing out that one arrestee has herpes, and that some sent pornography. Notice that nothing to do with children is used here as evidence of intent or wrong doing.

Judd Grady wants us all to applaud “Operation Child protector”. Yet the real crime here is that law enforcement purposely try to spin the truth to public shaming so that their unethical tactics stay unscrutinized. What child was protected in this sting? Certainly not the children of these 27 persons who will be prosecuted regardless of intent or design to harm a child.

Written by Lady Justice Myth

(1)https://news.yahoo.com/three-employees-walt-disney-world
(2) https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/14/us/theme-park-employees-child-sex-stings/ (3)https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/17-arrested-in-undercover-child-predator-
operation-including-3-disney-employees

(4)https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Walt-Disney-Parks-and-Resorts/faq/background-check

(5)https://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/2014/07/17/disney-stresses-background-checks-after-i
nvestigation/