WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. — The Williamsville Central School District ran a special program this past week to help children and parents cope with online sexual contacts or videos they may encounter.
It also relates to the warning for parents from Williamsville school officials who sent a letter about an inappropriate video, which the Amherst Police Department Special Victims Unit is now investigating.
We are also focusing on that special law enforcement sponsored program presented to students which may have valuable information for all of us.
U.S. Secret Service Agent Rick Nord told students "we're not here to scare you. We're here to educate you."
That is how Nord started out this program called the Operation Angel Summit which blends eye - opening warnings but also useful ways to deal with some of the extremely difficult on - line issues for kids and parents.
As we've shown you the Buffalo FBI office has a specific Western New York Child Exploitation Task Force to track, trace and try to take down adults who deal in child pornography and sextortion.
Tonawanda Police Detective Eric Schmidt, who is part of that task force told 2 On Your Side last year "We've seen victims as early as newborn."
So this Operation Angel program is geared directly to teens. One specific element involves sexting by teens and perhaps hitting send with inappropriate or even nude pictures which tragically can haunt them on the web forever.
Nord said there is some help available through the Take It Down program operated through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and involving a variety of participating social media platforms like Tik Tok, Facebook and Instagram.
Nord explained "You hook up to Take It Down. They teach you to get a hash of that photo or video which is just a serial number. And then you send it to them. You will not send a photo or video to NCMEC. You only send that serial number of that phot and they teach you how to do it. Then they forward it out to all the platforms and they scrub their servers to get that down. And again we can't guarantee that it would be taken down anywhere but this is best source to do that."
Students were also advised to identify a responsible adult to immediately tell them if they are approached on - line or see something just wrong. Agent Nord says must realize that unfortunately many trusted power figures like teachers, coaches, clergy and even first responders have been arrested in these terrible cases with young victims.
He says obviously that is not the vast majority but "There's a small percentage that utilize that power to victimize you."
Students were also advised that the best way to stop such abuse and threats is to report it to police or law enforcement like the FBI or again that really trusted adult or friend.