Undercover H.B. officer thwarts possible sex crime:
In my opinion, the Huntington Beach Police Department in California is one of the most proactive law enforcement agencies when it comes to catching sexual predators on craigslist. They’ve been featured on this site many times before, and it’s good to see that they’re still being vigilant.
Most recently they arrested 55-year-old Carlton Earl Griner for allegedly placing an ad on craigslist soliciting for sex. He thought he was meeting a 13-year-old girl at a shopping center but the person he was exchanging sexually explicit e-mails with was a Huntington Beach detective. Shopping Centers or malls is the other prerequisite meeting place for creepers like this to meet their victims. Griner is a registered sex offender for having a prior conviction in Iowa on child pornography charges.
While the HBPD may be doing their job in catching these creepers it doesn’t feel like the state is backing them up. While Griner is facing a lifetime on the sex offender registry he’s only looking at 5 years in prison. Obviously, the registry wasn’t enough to keep him from offending again.
And once again this shows that craigslist has become the weekly flier for sexual predators shopping for victims.
UPDATE 11/2/2013: Griner was only sentenced to 3 years behind bars. Not even the 5 years he was looking at. What does it take to keep a registered sex offender in California behind bars longer?
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 