I mean the headline says it all. 20-year-old Tyler Austin Erickson of Salt Lake City has been charged with attempted rape of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child, lewdness involving a child, and enticing a minor. Erickson allegedly met a 12-year-old girl on the website Omegle.
Again, for the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no real age checks on Omegle. They say that they monitor the chats that take place but I have to wonder how well monitored they are if a 20-year-old man is grooming a 12-year-old girl, but I digress. And again, I can’t stress this enough, but Omegle is not an app. There’s no icon to look for on any of your kid’s devices. It’s a website that you have to check the device’s browser history to see if it’s being accessed. Any device with a web browser, and an internet connection and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle.
Getting back to Erickson, he was caught with the girl at the girl’s grandmother’s house. During the investigation, police found messages between the two where they were talking about having a baby together. Prepare your mind bleach.
“Tyler and the juvenile victim had made previous arrangements to meet for sexual encounters if their first encounter was not successful in completing the goal of making the juvenile pregnant.”
Ick.
Anyway, any unmonitored internet device is just an open doorway between predators and your kids.
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 