Catfish Cops

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April gives an interview covering the therapy department at DCAC.

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Lt. Joe Laramie (ret) is a Program Manager with the National Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC) of Fox Valley Technical College working in the Missing and Exploited Children’s and the Internet Crimes Against Children Training and Technical Assistance Programs.

He retired in 2010 from the Glendale, Missouri Police Department, with more than 30 years of child protection, investigation and training experience.  During his time with Glendale PD he was Police Juvenile Office, D.A.R.E. Officer, and in 2001,   created the Greater St. Louis Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. In 2003 he became the founding Commander of the Missouri ICAC Task Force. From 2010 through 2011, he was an Administrator with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, with responsibility for online crimes against children, human trafficking and the computer forensic lab. He served as a subject matter expert on the Missouri Governor’s Cyberbullying Task Force, the Missouri Task Force for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse and the International Association of Chiefs of Police Child Sex Trafficking Training Project.

He is currently a member of the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and member of the Board of Directors for the Davis House, a Child Advocacy Center in his home of Franklin, TN. He is a nationally known speaker on the topic of online child exploitation, child sex trafficking and technology related protections for youth, families and professionals.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Bellevue University, and is a 2004 graduate of the FBI National Academy.  

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Please join us for an updated episode from our friend Randy Snyder who we previously featured back in Episodes 57 & 58. It was great to catch up and see what is happening now in Randy's life. 

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Detective Inspector Michael Haddow shares with us the unbelievable true story of a young child being kidnapped and raped. Michael was one of many on a team of dedicated law enforcement investigators working around the clock to bring resolution to this family.

Central Coast man who raped 12-year-old girl revealed to be a dad

Many disturbing details have emerged about the camouflaged man. Many new disturbing details have emerged about the man, who was dressed in camouflage when he grabbed the defenseless 12-year-old girl as she walked to school. The 12-year-old girl was walking alone to school on the Central Coast in May 2017, when a camouflaged man suddenly grabbed her from behind. She screamed for help as the man, who was dressed in a ghillie suit, dragged her into nearby bushland. Although the traumatized girl was eventually able to escape, the man managed to first tie her up and sexually assault her. The man appeared at Gosford District Court on Thursday to plead guilty to a total of 10 offences, including the 2017 attack on the 12-year-old girl and other sex offences committed against a different 11-year-old girl between August 2016 and January 2017. He said he hid beside a bush track because he knew it was a well-worn path for children going to school, had already been widely named after his arrest and after initial court appearances.

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You Can’t Stop What You Don’t Know™

Tall Cop Says Stop™ was created by Officer Jermaine Galloway, an Idaho law enforcement officer since 1997. Regarded as one of America’s top experts in various drug and alcohol trends, he has specialized in underage drinking and drug enforcement for more than 15 years.

Since 2009, Officer Galloway has won four national awards and one international award for his work. In addition to his numerous talks at conferences and other events, he has personally trained more than 105,000 people nationwide.

Officer Galloway’s many years of experience have taught him one thing above all else. In his words, “You can’t stop what you don’t know™.”

A Message from the Tall Cop

Some of you might wonder why I call my website Tall Cop Says Stop™ Well, I’m a tall cop.

Whether I’m teaching or working as a police officer, the first thing everyone notices about me is my height (I’m 6’9”). So it just made sense to put that into what I do.

I’ve been working against drug and alcohol abuse problems in communities for the past two decades. I’ve seen a lot of changes in our kids and our society over that time. I’ve seen these changes at:

• Large, underage drinking parties
• Retail stores
• Town hall meetings
• Assemblies
• Classrooms
• Festivals and other events

I’ve seen the ever-evolving drug culture trends sweep across our country. For many people, it’s hard to keep up with these trends, and especially to understand what they all mean. Unless you understand the culture, you won’t see it at all.

All over our nation, communities struggle to deal with underage drinking and drug usage. What can we do about these issues? Are we just going to meet up and “round table” them every month? Or are we going to get out there and do something to fix the problems?

That’s where Tall Cop Says Stop™ comes in. Through education, prevention and enforcement, my presentations address underage drinking and drug problems and empower you to detect these problems and fight them within your own community.

Everyday items that you might not take a second look at will take on a new meaning once you learn about the drug culture. I’ll help you understand many things, including:

• New drugs
• Logos and other identifiers
• Pictures, songs and clothing connected to drugs
• Potential stash compartments

On average, I give more than 200 presentations per year. These training sessions can have anywhere from 25 to 1,000 attendees. I don’t have any “canned presentations;” each class or presentation is highly visual, interactive and class-specific. They can last from one hour to two days, depending on need.

Whichever course you take, I’ll give you tools to reduce, prevent or stop drug and alcohol abuse in your community. Remember, YOU CAN’T STOP WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW™.

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Kevin Metcalf started his career in the Army in 1988. Since then, he’s been in one uniform or another – state, local, and federal law enforcement, and later counterterrorism. In 2006 he became a single parent to his two daughters, ages two and five, when their mother died. At the time, he was doing counterterrorism work. One Thanksgiving, he was in London for work when his overnight babysitter called and said she couldn’t make it. Luckily, he had some amazing neighbors who stepped in and took care of his daughters. But that was it – Kevin decided he needed to do something that kept him closer to home.

He returned to the United States, went to law school, and became a prosecuting attorney. As an investigator, he was trained to look in data silos. He had to know about DNA, fingerprints, and how all of that worked. But cell phones were pretty much unknown at that point. Using cell phone location data, social media, and other electronic evidence wasn’t being done much. Finding Somewhere to Make a Difference
Kevin had spent over twenty years in law enforcement, but as a prosecuting attorney, he was the new guy. He started looking around for somewhere he could make a difference. That place ended up being social media, cell phones, computers, and other technology that was new at the time. He went through the FBI’s CAST training and went to the Secret Service National Computer Training Center three times to learn about forensics and social media.

Working with cell phones and social media led to a lot of cases involving children and child predators. He had many jury trials that involved social media and cell phone evidence. That’s where he found a major difference between investigating and prosecuting. As an investigator, he just had to find the evidence. As a prosecutor, he had twelve people from the community with varying levels of interest, expertise, and usage of technology. He had to figure out how to connect the technological evidence to the witness statements, forensic reports, and more “traditional” evidence.

After a few of those trials, it really clicked. Why were investigators not making these connections on the front end? Law enforcement treats everything as its own separate silo. But it all fits together, and as a prosecutor Kevin had to start making those connections. Kevin’s combined experience as an investigator and a prosecutor led him to go back and start helping with investigations again. In each case, there were federal agencies and other agencies involved. Kevin would come in and tell them what information to ask for and what language to include on the search warrant. Usually, with Kevin’s help, they recovered the kids within a day.

This brought Kevin to the attention of the National Cybercrime Conference. The conference brings in experts in cybercrime from all over. Kevin spoke there about the work he was doing to combat child trafficking and exploitation. Other experts saw what he was doing and how much he was helping people and wanted to be a part of it.

Now, they’ve formed a nonprofit, the National Child Protection Task Force, made of active-duty law enforcement, active-duty military, private sector technology experts, engineers, and a wide variety of others. They come together to look at problems and ask questions about technology. What data are we seeing? Is there anything we can do with that? What information are we not asking for, and what do we not know? This variety of experts coming together has made a big difference.

The CSI Effect: The CSI effect is real. People do expect you to be able to solve something in 30 minutes. … If you’re going in front of a jury, you better understand the CSI effect because it does impact what they expect.

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Melissa is a licensed social worker specializing in anti-human trafficking work, developing/maintaining multi-disciplinary teams, and secondary traumatic stress and officer wellness. Melissa is a certified trainer in Green Dot, Compassion Fatigue, GEMS, Stand to Protect, My Life My Choice, and SHARP, and is Child Welfare and Safe Zone/PRIDE trained. She has eight years of experience providing national/international training and technical assistance, and case management to victims of human trafficking. Melissa has trained over 11,000 students and professionals, and currently sits on the Badges of Unity Board for Fargo PD. Melissa's past experience includes treatment foster care, prevention education, and psychiatric and addictions. She was the first Human Trafficking Navigator and Victim/Witness Specialist in ND, with six years of program development within ND. Melissa was a nominee for the YWCA's Women of the Year 2020. She currently resides in Clearwater, FL.

Melissa was a member of the North Dakota Human Trafficking Task Force, vice-chair of labor trafficking subcommittee, for six years. She developed a human trafficking program and protocol response for ND, per grant deliverables. Melissa also assisted in the development of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Victim/Witness Program and was the first Specialist hired for that role. 

Melissa has trained at the IAHTI, GRIT Wyoming, Shared Hope, NCPTF, Dallas CAC and IHTSJ conferences, specific to human trafficking team development, secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue, interviews and investigation considerations, person-centered and trauma informed approaches, and the implementation of programming for first responders created in ND.

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Groomed is the intimate story of filmmaker Gwen van de Pas as she returns to her hometown in search of answers about the man who sexually abused her as a child.

To understand her ongoing traumas, Gwen travels to meet survivors, psychologists, and even a convicted sex offender. The film addresses a common yet unknown manipulation type called ‘grooming’, how to recognize it, and ultimately, how to stop it.

What begins as an exploration into grooming becomes a dramatic journey where Gwen faces unexpected revelations in her case, finally finds her anger, and boldly confronts the evil we’d rather ignore.
 
 It was an honor and privilege to meet Gwen and have her share her story with us which we know was extremely difficult. We know you will gain knowledge and awareness from this final Episode with Gwen.  

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Feel free to leave us a comment! If you'd like to ask a question, or want a response, please send an email to us at [email protected]!

Groomed is the intimate story of filmmaker Gwen van de Pas as she returns to her hometown in search of answers about the man who sexually abused her as a child.

To understand her ongoing traumas, Gwen travels to meet survivors, psychologists, and even a convicted sex offender. The film addresses a common yet unknown manipulation type called ‘grooming’, how to recognize it, and ultimately, how to stop it.

What begins as an exploration into grooming becomes a dramatic journey where Gwen faces unexpected revelations in her case, finally finds her anger, and boldly confronts the evil we’d rather ignore.

It was an honor and privilege to meet Gwen and have her share her story with us which we know was extremely difficult. We know you will gain knowledge and awareness from the first of two Episodes with Gwen.  

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We very much appreciate the opportunity to interview Jared Barnhart who is a Digital Intelligence Specialist at Cellebrite supporting technical customer needs and driving product development. He served as a police officer in Maryland for more than ten years, which is where he started his career in digital forensics.

Cellebrite is the global leader in partnering with public and private organizations to transform how they manage Digital Intelligence in investigations to protect and save lives, accelerate justice and ensure data privacy. They aid organizations in mastering the complexities of legally sanctioned digital investigations with an award-winning Digital Intelligence Investigative Platform and services to unify the investigative lifecycle and manage digital evidence. Cellebrite technology helps convict bad actors and bring justice to victims of crimes, including child exploitation, homicide and sexual assault, drug and human trafficking, fraud and financial crime. Their solutions, services, and training are built and designed to help our customers improve public safety, help victims reclaim their lives, and uncover the truth buried within each investigation.

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