Setsuled's Journal

Aw, I just saw the most hilarious report on CNN. I wish to the gods I could find video of it online.

It was a piece on some police officers who pose as thirteen or fourteen year-old children to trap online sexual predators.

Now, I've got no love for the creeps who take advantage of children like that. But the report was a dead masterpiece of Responsible Citizens completely clueless about their own nature and motives. Think Robert Downey Jr. and Tommy Lee Jones in Natural Born Killers.

The first thing that made me laugh was a recording of an actual conversation between a paedophile and an officer posing as a thirteen year-old girl. It's preceded by the reporter informing us that what we were about to hear was, "very disturbing."

PAEDOPHILE: "You've got a cute voice."

OFFICER (in a very sugary version of what might be a young girl's voice): "Thank you." (followed by giggling)

PAEDOPHILE: "You're horny, aren't you?"

OFFICER (petulantly): "I don't know."

PAEDOPHILE: "Hehehe, you got a cute voice."

What killed me was how obviously the officer was getting off from the playacting, probably without realising it. Who's the predator here?

Then we get one of those classic segments where the reporter is speaking to the camera in low tones while crouched in a car, explaining that he's at a park with some officers who are about to conclude a sting operation. They're about to arrest a man who's come to the park under the belief that he's meeting a fourteen year-old girl he met online.

After this, there's brief footage of four officers closing in on a young Hispanic guy carrying something small and blue in his hand. And one of the officers shouts--I kid you not--"Drop the beanie, Sir!"

It's that sort of thing that makes Thursday bearable.