A California cop recently recognized for his leadership has been arrested for allegedly exchanging explicit messages with somebody he thought was a 16-year-old girl.
In reality, it was a male college student who used Snapchat’s gender-swapping filter to pose as an underage girl online in order to catch sexual predators.
The San Jose Police Department last week said that its Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force / Child Exploitation Detail (CED) had arrested Inspector Robert Edward Davies, a 40-year-old officer with the San Mateo Police Department.
Davies was arrested last week on suspicion of contacting a minor to commit a felony.
In an interview with NBC Bay Area on Tuesday, the student said he fears retaliation and thus only wanted to be identified by his first name, Ethan. He said that he was inspired to pose as an underage girl so as to catch sexual predators because of the history of a close friend who’d been molested as a child.
Ethan opened up a phony Tinder account for a 19-year-old named “Esther.” He knew that Tinder doesn’t allow minors to open accounts, so he then doctored the profile photo with a Snapchat filter to make himself look like a young girl.
Ethan allegedly began chatting with Davies on Tinder on 11 May 2019. Next, they picked up the conversation on Kik. It was at that point that Ethan told Davies that “she” was 16 – an admission that Davies acknowledged.
Davies then asked “Esther” to switch to Snapchat, where they also discussed her age and started to chat about hooking up.
NBC Bay Area quoted Ethan:
I believe he messaged me, ‘Are you down to have some fun tonight?’ and I decided to take advantage of it.
“Esther” asked if her age of 16 bothered Davies. Police say that screen captures show that it did not. After moving to a new chat app, it got more sexual, Ethan said:
We started texting on there, and it got a lot more explicit.
Are you down to get arrested tonight?
Ethan said that he and Davies texted back and forth for over 12 hours. He sent screen captures of their conversation to Crime Stoppers. Ethan said that he wasn’t out to catch a cop, per se. It’s just that as it happened, the first man to allegedly reach out to him was a cop:
I was just looking to get someone. He just happened to be a cop.
A statement released last week by San Mateo police Chief Susan Manheimer about Davies’ arrest:
This alleged conduct, if true, is in no way a reflection of all that we stand for as a Department, and is an affront to the tenets of our department and our profession as a whole. As San Mateo police officers, we have sworn an oath to serve and protect our communities. I can assure you that we remain steadfast to this commitment to serving our community with “Professionalism, Integrity, and Excellence.
Anonymous
I wonder if he was only caught because it was a non police sting. He could have had the information of sting profiles to avoid meeting his co-workers online.
anonymous coward
In an era of deepfakes and photoshop and endemic government surveillance, are we really to believe the prattle of self-appointed vigilantes and publicity-minded cops? You should be ashamed of yourself for publishing an article with a defendant’s name, when nothing has been proven in court. You should be ashamed of yourself for not identifying the vigilante who may have fabricated evidence. You should be ashamed of yourself for including prurient details without verifying any of the primary sources yourself. And what does this article have to do with security? It’s completely irrelevant to security. Shame on you, Sophos.
Mahhn
AC, you posted; “without verifying any of the primary sources yourself” the story was public before it was posted here. The POLICE identified the suspect, not Sophos. The links in the story go directly to the departments own site and state:
“During the follow-up investigation, detectives confirmed Davies’ identity and served search warrants on electronic devices, mobile applications, and on Davies’ residence.”
“On Thursday, June 6, 2019, detectives obtained a felony arrest warrant and the San Jose Police Department’s Covert Response Unit (CRU) arrested Davies in the City of Morgan Hill. He was subsequently booked into Santa Clara County Jail for contacting a minor to commit a felony (felony) – 288.3(a) PC.”
You also state: ” what does this article have to do with security?” – It’s a crime using computers.
Why are you so offended by the arrest of someone attempting to exploit children?
anonymous coward
I’m offended that Sophos would repeat someone’s name and job title for no reason and without a conviction at court. Qualifying police statements as “alleged” or “allegations” doesn’t give news media the right to ruin a person’s name, until those statements are proven correct, either by court or independent journalistic verification. Even repeating a story told by other news outlets, which simply quote police statements, is lazy, bad journalism.
If this someone were in another country, all that would be public at this time would be a name and arrest charges; you wouldn’t have police putting out statements or setting up an interview with a pseudonymous vigilante.
Sophos should know better than to engage in American-style naming and shaming of a defendant before trial.
Even more, Sophos should have examined if there is any element of the story that relates to computer security. They didn’t and that’s also offensive.
Nobody_Holme
For example, the use of manipulation of images for what most people would see as good?
Sophos is generally rather above the average standard for treatment of accused but not convicted people, but if the police department the guy worked for are reporting things as if he’s guilty, it’s not unfair for news orgs to do the same.
I would fully expect Sophos to print a retraction if the guy was found innocent, likely with details of how he was trapped into whatever scenario he could possibly be in that would make this story untrue, as that too would be relevant news.
anonymous coward
It’s not uncommon for employers (even police departments) to rapidly distance themselves from anyone accused of a crime, to limit any negative publicity. To infer guilt from a public relations strategy is a mistake.
I understand what you are writing and respect your comment.
Pierre Potgieter
To “anonymous coward”
Well said mate, couldn’t agree more!!