BROOKINGS — Protecting youngsters online has been a longtime priority for law enforcers, but the Brookings Police Department has deepened that commitment by joining the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Members of the Brookings City Council learned more about the task force — and the BPD’s affiliate status — at their April 14 meeting during a presentation by BPD Detective Sgt. Rhett Larsen. Key points included:
• It’s a national network of more than 5,200 law enforcement agencies dedicated to battling online child exploitation. In South Dakota, the ICAC Task Force is led by the state Division of Criminal Investigation.
• Funding is received via the U.S. Department of Justice.
• South Dakota has 18 affiliate agencies. Among them is the Brookings County Sheriff’s Office, per earlier reporting in The Brookings Register.
Larsen said that ICAC Task Force affiliates investigate online crimes against children, conduct digital evidence collection, support victim identification and provide community education.
He also spoke of the benefits of being an affiliate, focusing on training, resources, and funding opportunities.
Training
• Specialized training for investigators.
• Digital forensics training.
“(This is) the deep dive into how we process these types of cases, how we collect evidence and then how we prepare a good case for prosecution,” Larsen explained.
Resources
• Access to investigative databases.
“This gives us a very broad scope to have resources in all of those databases and the ability to investigate these cases with all of those agencies jointly,” he noted.
• Technical and forensic support.
• Intelligence sharing.
Funding opportunities
• Potential equipment grants
• Potential overtime reimbursement for operations.
Larsen outlined an affiliate’s responsibilities as well:
• Assigning at least one investigator to the ICAC Task Force. The BPD currently has two detectives serving in this capacity, he said.
• Assign trained investigators to ICAC-related cases.
• Participate in task force operations and investigations.
• Maintain compliance with ICAC investigative guidelines.
• Complete required training and reporting.
Toward the end of his presentation, Larsen also pointed to the impact on Brookings of joining the task force:
• Improving the ability to identify and rescue victims.
• Strengthening investigations involving online child exploitation.
• Providing proactive enforcement over reactive responses.
• Increasing community education and prevention.
“That’s the outreach that we can have with the community to educate our youth and educate teachers and everybody else that’s going to be involved that helps us work these cases and, overall, improve our ability to identify and rescue these victims,” he explained.
Councilors’ thoughts
Larsen’s presentation drew some questions from councilors, one focusing primarily on multi-agency cooperation and finances. Councilor Brianna Doran led the charge.
“Is it a barrier if there’s a case that spans across multiple agencies or counties and they aren’t an affiliate?” she queried. “Does that create a barrier because we are an affiliate?”
Larsen didn’t think so. “There is no barrier. The benefit to joining the task force is to break down those barriers because that gives us a broader jurisdiction to work on the task force, and that gives us the jurisdiction to work with all agencies, not just affiliate agencies or just members of the task force.”
Doran also inquired into the training aspect, whether it would be specific to investigators or apply to other BPD officers.
“The ICAC-specific training that’s going to be dealing with internet crimes against children, the child exploitation, those cases are specific to detectives because they’re the ones that are going to go through all of that training,” Larsen said. “With the sensitive nature of these cases, we keep it to the trained investigators.”
Doran was curious about the implementation timeline as well. To this, Larsen said the onboarding process is underway with the state Department of Criminal Investigation’s ICAC commander.
“Now we’re just working on procuring a few computers and stuff like that to work this,” Larsen said, adding that the training should wrap up no later than mid-summer.
“I’m really excited about joining this task force,” Doran noted. “I think it’s a great benefit to our community and probably much needed for officers.”
Councilor Lisa Hager then joined the conversation, asking about the grant-funded nature of the ICAC task force — basically if, down the road, the city might have to set aside some money to help sustain the task force’s continued operation.
“No. So, our partnership with the ICAC task force, the grant portion of that is what pays for the training and stuff like that,” Larsen said. “The actual implementation of the program and joining the task force costs us absolutely nothing.”
There might, however, be some training-related costs.
“On the back end of everything, the only thing that it would ever potentially cost us would be training, but that would be only if, let’s say, worst-case scenario, the DOJ cut funding for this particular task force,” he said. “Based on the national trends and everything that I’m seeing, I don’t foresee the ICAC task force being something that they’re going to cut for training and resources.”
Other business
Councilors dealt with a couple of other presentations and votes as well at their April 14 meeting, including:
• Hearing a presentation from BPD Chief Michael Drake regarding new hires and staff promotions at the police department, along with a swearing-in ceremony for patrol officers Dakota Dodds, Drayden Schneider, Jarett Armstrong and Maggie Schliepsiek.
• Heard the second reading of ordinance changes that would affect the city’s rules regarding animals. No action was taken, as a third and final reading will be necessary at the City Council’s April 28 meeting because of an amendment regarding chickens made at the ordinance’s first reading on March 24.
• On a pair of 7-0 votes, agreed to rezone portions of the Bluegill Second Addition and Bluegill Third Addition to allow for further residential development, and to approve a preliminary plat for lots in those additions.
— Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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