Predators use Facebook to groom Kids

Lock this guy up for good. That’s a most fitting motto for Brandon McIntyre, 22, who pretended he was “Katie Thompson” on Facebook and threatened to kill a girl’s family if she refused to go on trips with him.

This New Jersey nutcase made another ridiculous threat (ridiculous, because, how could he think that even young victims could take him seriously?) to a 12-year-old, telling her he was a cop who’d have her expelled from school and sent to state prison for failing to obey a police officer. The “order” was to send him explicit photos of herself.

Posing as a police officer, he even told a woman via texting he’d have her daughter taken away if she refused to go on a date with him. He could get 30 years in federal prison and fines totaling half a million dollars.

The next predator was a bit more convincing, using Facebook to talk a boy into ducking out of his home in the middle of the night to meet him. Adam Brown, 21, was caught by the victim’s mother. Brown got the boy’s confidence first by posting videos of himself and telling jokes. The boy’s mother worked nights and his grandmother watched him and his siblings.

One night she returned to find their dog acting strange; she discovered the boy wasn’t in his bed. She contacted him via cell and he said he was just out walking. She drove out and picked him up, took away his phone and computer, and demanded his passwords. She then gained access to the cyber dialogue between him and Brown. In the dialogue, Brown told the boy that the boy was cute. And the dialogue got worse. The boy actually met Brown, who had threatened suicide if he refused.

His mother told Brown, after contacting him, to cease contact with her son, but he contacted him again and made creepy comments.

• Get full access to your kids social accounts.
• Monitor their device activity without notice.
• Have in-depth detailed conversations about how predators lure kids.
• Read every news report about these issues and discuss with your kid.
• Turn off all wireless and wired internet at night so kids can’t have access.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist to BestHomeSecurityCompanys.com discussing burglar proofing your home on Fox Boston. Disclosures.