Police Rescue Toddler Being Molested Live Online

By Linda Orlando

A man who was sexually abusing a young girl in his home was arrested by Toronto police after an undercover detective viewed live images of him molesting a toddler. Detective Paul Krawczyk, the undercover officer, was posing as an online pedophile and established a relationship with the man in an online chat room for pedophiles in January.

After the man felt he could trust Krawczyk, he sent him still images recorded on a webcam, and then transmitted them in real time to a private site. The images showed the man assaulting a toddler in his home. When Krawczyk realized the attack was happening while he was watching, he immediately alerted police in St. Thomas, a city in southwestern Ontario where authorities believed the man lived. "My first reaction was that I wanted to reach through the monitor and grab the child," said Krawczyk. Police were able to track the man down in two hours and arrest him.

"To see this child and look that child in the eyes and realize that the child was live somewhere, being abused, we had to save the child right then," Krawczyk said at a news conference. "The minute we realized what was happening, we went as fast as we could." Police said that the incident was the first case they knew of where a detective actually observed a live assault online.

Krawczyk belongs to Toronto’s Child Exploitation Section, a police division that has received wide acclaim for its devotion and success in tracking down and arresting child pornographers on the Internet. The detectives teamed with Microsoft Corp. last year to create a software program designed to help police forces around the world hunt down pedophiles trafficking in child pornography online.

"I can't get into exactly what the program is," Krawczyk told The Associated Press. "But you see the images immediately. I was talking with him and, I can't get into the details of what were in the pictures, but I knew that it was happening live." Krawczyk said that although he had established a relationship with the 34-year-old suspect last January, it was not until Sunday, when he observed the live assault, that police had evidence of an actual crime to arrest him.

Police have not released the identity of the suspect, in order to protect the child, and have not said whether or not the suspect is related to her. The girl is safe with family members, and is receiving medical care. The man who molested her faces 10 charges of sexual assault and the production, possession and distribution of child pornography.

The Child Exploitation unit and their software program were responsible for helping Florida police locate a young girl who had appeared in a series of sexually explicit photographs taken at a Walt Disney World hotel. "The message to all pedophiles, and people who want to sexually exploit children on the Internet, is that we are on the Internet 24/7," Krawczyk said. "We know where you are and we will find you."