School officer's MySpace page investigated

NEW PORT RICHEY — If kids want to find pornography on the Internet, they don't have to try hard: A Google search with the term "porn" nets 226-million options in .05 seconds.

Gulf Middle School resource officer John Nohejl's MySpace page, aimed directly at the school's sixth, seventh and eighth graders, doesn't fit that description. Yet until Tuesday afternoon, kids could navigate from Officer John's site to "Amateur Match Free Sex" in just three clicks.

One of his MySpace "friends" offered the link, which included photos of nude women and gave an enthusiastic "YES!" to the question "Can I really get laid?" Another offered obscene comments about oral sex and large breasts, among others.

The links are gone, but their residue remains. Nohejl — OJ to the kids at Gulf Middle — is under investigation by the New Port Richey police department and the Florida Attorney General's cyber crimes unit for making the materials available to underage children.

Cybersafety "is the attorney general's highest priority," said Sandy Copes, spokeswoman for the Florida Attorney General's Office. "I am sure the attorney general would be extremely concerned if a member of the trusted law enforcement community was either inadvertently or directly placing students at risk to being exposed to inappropriate content on the internet."

New Port Richey police chief Martin "Mo" Rickus said Wednesday he would "hardly believe" that Nohejl intentionally allowed links to pornography on the MySpace page that both the police department and school principal approved to reach out to students "where they're at."

Still, Rickus said, the department will look into how the links got there and what role, if any, Nohejl played.

"It's unfortunate," Rickus said. "We apologize that this happened. But it's something that can happen on any site. We're going to look into it and see that it doesn't happen again."

Nohejl declined to comment during the investigation.

To become someone's MySpace friend, you have to get their approval or their invitation. However, as Rickus noted, once friends win approval, they can change their own page and all the links on them. What once might have been innocuous could take on a different look within minutes.

The records should tell the story, the chief said.

Nohejl, an officer since 1996, has worked at Gulf Middle for three years. To this point, Rickus said, any issues with his performance have been minor — "nothing major."

So when the idea of his setting up a MySpace page to communicate with students — who range in age from 11 to 15 — came up in late 2007, leaders at the school and the police department were enthusiastic.

"It gives us another form of informal communication to know what's happening with our students in our school," principal Stan Trapp said. "We felt it was important to have as many avenues of communication as possible."

Sometimes, Rickus said, tips about crimes come through the online networking community faster than any other grapevine. Having connections there only can help, he added.

Yet the worldwide web carries its own set of risks, and educators and others involved with children often are cautioned to wade in cautiously if they choose to make personal contacts with students.

"You can't even give the appearance of impropriety because of who we are as educators," said Lizette Alexander, Pasco's director of student services who also oversees the county school resource officers.

Because MySpace can include profanity, porn and other uncensored content despite the company's best efforts to protect against it, the Pasco school district filters out the site from its Internet service. That should be a clear indicator to teachers who want to communicate with students electronically that they should use other means, such as the secure district web server, superintendent Heather Fiorentino said.

Yet the district has no rules on the use of social networking sites. That's about to change, Fiorentino said.

"We are looking at what kind of policy we need and getting some guidelines out for teachers," she said, noting that if kids are on the Internet, teachers and others need to have a safe way to contact them there.

Trapp and Rickus said they saw Nohejl's attempts to reach out as a way to keep Gulf Middle safe.

"I think John is trying to do an exemplary job as a resource officer and he wants to use all the tools available to him to keep them safe at our school," Trapp said.

He ran the MySpace page from home, because the school district web server screens it out, and might not have noticed that some of his "friends" had profanity, sexually-oriented comments and links to sex pictures on them, Rickus said.

An anonymous caller tipped off the St. Petersburg Times that such content existed on the officer's page, complaining that her son and some friends accessed the "Amateur Match Free Sex" site through it on Monday. Shortly after receiving a call from the Times on Tuesday, Trapp contacted Nohejl, who removed 16 "friends" — including the ones with sex links — within an hour.

"When he heard there was a problem, he went to fix it right away," Trapp said.

Rickus said Nohejl's lieutenant supervised the process.

The problem is far from isolated to this instance.

MySpace updated its safety and security procedures in November, and is working to implement an anti-porn database system. According to its security overview statement, "We work hard to provide users with access to age appropriate content, to shield younger users from older members of the community and to partner with law enforcement in these efforts."

That's also a goal of the Florida Attorney General's office, which recently launched a "cybersafety" education initiative directed at middle and high schools.

Gulf Middle is scheduled to receive the presentation in April.

Comments

[Sherry]

Lots of law enforcement agencies have myspace pages. They're a good presence to have. Heck, even the politicians are there! To say OJ or teachers shouldn't be there is foolish. Its good to have safe mentors in places kids hang out. Giving the kids a trusted face/sounding board is wise. (can you imagine an unchaperoned dance, social club or party?) I do agree that it may smarter for OJ to have a personal page, separate from the Officer John page, for the sake of sorting out friends. For crying out loud, while I'm hardly an OJ fan, it's the internet folks...should we just leave it all to the kids and predators?
I think not. And yes, I'm on myspace and I'm well over 14. If you think I'm a loser, Uncle, so be it...but the site has reconnected me with childhood friends I'd lost track of, helped me spread the word about issues dear to me AND helped me to develop a better understanding of some of the kids my child hangs out with. Keep your myspace, teachers. Ms. Fiorentino, perhaps you should have one too, to learn what you think from personal experiences, rather than basing rules and policies on media and hype. Three generations of my family are on myspace. It's the simplest way to keep in touch. (I was a skeptic myself, now I bless Tom for founding it)

[kevin]

Lets not forget the time that St. Pete Times published the wrong Stanley Cup Winner, when the Lighting won the Stanley Cup. Obviously, St. Pete Times is nothing more than a gossip column that doesn't know "news" from "water cooler banter". Great front page material, yeah right.

[JACKIE CASTRO- STILES]

AS A GULF MIDDLE PARENT I AM CONCERN THAT THIS OFFICER IS BEING BASHED VIA THE MEDIA FOR THINGS HE HAS NO CONTROL OVER OR DID INTENTIONALLY. A MANS CARREER IS AT STAKES HERE PEOPLE. BOTH MY KIDS HAVE A "MYSPACE PAGE" AND I AS A PARENT DO MONITOR THE PAGES BUT IT IS SO EASY TO HACK INTO THESE PAGES OR EVEN GO INTO THE WRONG SITES IF YOU JUST MIS-SPELL A WORD. TRY LOOKING UP THE CAR MAGAZINE "SUMMIT" LIKE MY SON DOES SOMETIMES AND ONE LETTER OUT OF PLACE WILL SEND YOU INTO A WORLD OF "SUBMISIVE PORN" IT DEPENDS ON HOW THE COMPUTER INTERPRETS YOUR TYPING. PLEASE, BEFORE YOU JUDGE SOMEONE AND DESTROY THEIR LIVES, LOOK INTO THE FACTS. OFFICER JHON IS A WONDERFUL, CARING MAN THAT LOVES HIS STUDENTS AND IS A WONDERFUL ROLE MODEL FOR THEM. GULF MIDDLE IS A GREAT SCHOOL THAT MADE A GREAT CHOICE OF HIRING OFFICER JHON. HE WILL ALWAYS HAVE OUR RESPECT BECAUSE WE KNOW OFFICER JHON. TO THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW HIM, DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE PAPERS.

[Rebecca]

What a shame. I go through my childs page on a daily basis. She talks to her cousins up north through Myspace. She has some bands and friends from school on her page also. And the bands play music that I will never understand or pretend to. THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD HOLD MY DAUGHTER RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT THESE BANDS HAVE ON THEIR PAGES OR HER SCHOOL FRIENDS. IT IS THE SAME THING!

This is exactly what you are asking this officer to do.
By the way,was this reported by a parent, and how old was the child whose parent reported this STRAIGHT to the paper? I wonder if she/he was 14 or older. I mean you DO have to be 14 to use the site. I would be willing to bet the child is under 14, which means that they should not have even been on the site in the first place.

St. Pete Times,
Do both sides of the story. And for the record it is usually departmental policy not to comment on an open investigation. Superiors are the ones who issue comments. By stating no comment, this officer is only following instructions from those superiors.

[Kids Come First HQ]

For the sake of ignorance, the lack of true facts, the promotion of sensationalism and shock jock journalism a good mans career is put in jeopardy. So let’s remove all the ones that are doing everything in their power to reach out to our kids to guide and protect them and let the real sub-culture of child hunters remain. If anyone cares to take the time too actually look at Officer John’s MySpace Account they would see that it is populated with the children he is reaching out to. There are many Police Department’s that are getting involved with our children because they care. Being visible is a means of protection from a host of crimes that are being committed against children and Law Enforcement’s “up front” involvement is certainly a step in the right direction opposed to those that choose to look the other way.

As the Founders of Kids Come First, maintaining the integrity of our MySpace accounts is a constant battle. We are phished, hacked and removing inappropriate content on a continual basis and forced to change our passwords regularly. As with all good intentions there will always be the ones that will find sinister means, the internet with all its wonder is no different.

We support Officer Nohejl's efforts to keep children safe in his community as well as all those online and hope that common sense will prevail so he may continue his good and much needed work.

Gene & Barbara

A refusal to comment is not a sign of guilt. It's more likely a sign of a supervisor's instructions.

Perhaps those adult women listed as friends are teachers? Or parents?

Considering the amount of spamming I see on some pages on My Space, it's not far fetched to think this was not intentional.

[mike l]

Shame on the St. Pete Times?

SHAME ON Officer John!!!!

If you would have read the article correctly, I believe that it stated Officer Nohejl declined to comment. If he is so innocent and a "so called victim" in all of this, then when did he decline to comment?

WHAT A SICKO!

[frannie]

YOU GO ROGER, THIS MAN IS SICK!

[frannie]

To the people above, take a look at his friends on his Officer John myspace page. If this site was created for the purpose of keeping in contact with school age children ages 11-15 years, WHY are there still adult aged women STILL listed as his "friends". Is it not his responsibility to be proactive in checking out his friends and what is available for these students to view. I find it hard to believe... Was this site REALLY intended to communicate with children or to pick up women! I credit the times with this story and I plan to complain to the school board and I hope this man is removed from our children, he should not be working around them!!!! I am proud to say my children do not attend Gulf Middle School. It sounds like from reading this article the N.P.R. Police is trying to protect him,but who is there to protect our precious children.

[ROGER]

NEXT STEP.....THE COVERUP. YOU WATCH HOW THIS ISSUE GETS SQUASHED BY "THE GOOD OLE BOYS"

[Bonnie]

First of all, I run the FL Chapter of Kids Come First. We work in conjunction with LE to educate children about online predators, and this officer is a participant in Project LE Friends to better protect children against online predators. And we stand behind his integrity.

Now, If you approve a friend on your page and the information on their page is acceptable, what are you supposed to do? Check every single friend every day to make sure they do not change their profile? These kids are friends of Johns, not the questioned profile. And to insinuate that he in involved in subjecting children to inappropriate content is absurd. This is being made into something it is not and it seems to me that the St. Pete Times is trying to find a story that is not there and making it into something it is not.

And before you bash the idea of officers on Myspace to reach out to kids, think about this. Your child is more protected from predators if they have LE on their page. If a predator looks at 2 pages and one has LE on their pages and the other one doesnt, who do you think that predator is more likely to contact? Every teen on myspace should add a Law Enforcement agency to their pages as a layer of protection.

What a shame!!!!

[JTB]

anyone who has a myspace account knows that it is full of spam and hackers. this type of thing happens ALL THE TIME on there by no fault whatsoever of the page owner. people hack into the pages and post porn links all the time. this guy most likely had nothing to do with it.

once again, the times manages to get a complete non-story on the front page. bravo!

[Jay]

I think from the tone of this article, and from the responses from the police force, it's very clear that neither institution knows a think about the internet, MySpace or computers beyond their basic functions.

Really, it's embarrassing that the officer got phished, but it's even more comedic the way non-technical people try to explain the obvious course of events, all the while playing the sinister "pornography" angle to the public.

[James J.]

Shame on the St.pete times for posting this and not getting a comment from John.As a friend of his i know he would never intentionally do this and it could have happened to any of the other S.R.O.Myspace sites within the two counties.

[Lisa]

This is so wrong jonh is a great cop and any person can go on myspace and try adding you as a friend and some times u can never see who or what it. jonh did not know that the person adding him was a porn site this is so wrong!

[Angel]

This officer should not be held accountable for OTHER people's actions.
First of all, ever hear of phishing? People get duped all the time and phishers send spam, change profiles, etc.
Plus people can change their profile whenever and unless you check every single profile in your list every single day, how would you know?

I think it was a GREAT idea for the officer to have a Myspace to connect with the students. You can't expect these kids to meet us on our level...if we want to really be an influence in their lives, we meet them on their level. Myspace, like it or not, is a nearly universal theme among middle and high schoolers. It's irrelevant whether they are old enough to use Myspace, or whether their parents should allow it....the fact is that they ARE using Myspace. Having a law enforcement officer on their friend lists will make them unappealing targets for Myspace predators. As an approved friend, the officer will be able to peruse the comments and blog posts of the students and he can pick up on statements alluding to the kinds of trouble kids are vulnerable to: drugs, sex, bullying, cheating, criminal activities, etc.

Be realistic here. Without keeping communication open, we adults don't have a clue what is going on with our kids, and without knowing, there is limited opportunity to guide, teach, and most importantly, PROTECT.

No one should be telling teachers what they can do in their personal time when it doesn't have anything to do with their job (personal pages) and is not illegal.

This clearly says that he ran this from home, that MySpace is blocked.

I don't think he should be punished for this, but there should be some safeguards in place. I understand why he would think to have this page, with as many kids that have an account.

[frank]

i'm sure the link was not his idea, but what about common sense? does this man have any?

[Tex]

Ironic how a local juvenile judge court orders almost all juveniles who go through his courtroom to cease use of myspace and this officer is encouraging it.

[Uncle]

FYI, if you have a myspace, and you are over 18, you are a loser.

[All About Image]

"They" will make an example of this guy, but the real scum bags within the system that are taking advantage of students are quietly slipped away in the cover of professional deceit and no disclosure - just passin' the trash.

[Kenneth]

Ignorant - certain hacks get into people's Myspace accounts and are able to force advertising (such as this) upon all of the that person's friends. It's completely beyond anyone's control - it's a form of spam. It's basically like saying you're responsible for the "wang enhancement" emails in your inbox.

More than likely some kid who is a "friend" of the cop had their account hacked, and this message appeared. Get off the guy's back - why not offer support to a cop whose trying alternative methods to reach young people?

[sys admin]

why is myspace not blocked by a proxy? that's the better question. school and government networks should be locked down, it should be by white list only. want to surf a malware infested social networking site, do it on your own home pc. ppshawwww.

[betty]

Last year, the Pinellas district superintendent told teachers that they shouldn't have a MySpace account, even if it was a personal one unrelated to school. Some teachers didn't agree with that, but I think it was a smart move. The sites can be hacked or pranked by so-called MySpace "friends." To keep professional distance, and to prevent hoaxes, retaliation, and the like, it's best for teachers and other staff to avoid social networking sites that are popular with teens. I think this Pasco officer was trying to do something good, but some ignorant, indiscreet "friends" ruined it, by posting porn links. Schools have their own secure websites, where teachers can post their classroom web pages. If those web pages seem a bit bland, one can post a teacher web page via his or her home ISP, without links to social networking sites or advertisements. Then with administrative approval, one can have the school website link to that teacher's page. I know at my school, more tools are being provided so we can improve the appearance and interactivity of our child-safe school-based web pages. Instruction on building web sites is even provided to teachers by our IT staff. By the way, another issue, besides the safety of children, is that one shouldn't have anything of a commercial or personal nature on a school or any government-based website. MySpace is supported by ads, isn't it? And are the schools making any money from that? NO!

[Kelly]

Shame on you St Pete Times! This officer was doing a good thing by reaching out to the kids he is supposed to serve. Don't write an article slanting the circumstances to make it look like this officer is somehow responsible.

[Jon]

You can't be responsible for other people's content online. If I link to the SP Times and the SP Times links to something I don't agree with, that doesn't make me responsible. Move along, no story here.

[Chris]

Since you are supposed to be 14 or over to have a myspace account, isn't this officer encouraging illegal behavior?

IS ST PETE TIMES A POLICE BASHING WEBSITE?

It will be interesting to see what kind of policies they come up with in specific regard to sites like My Space for teachers and staff. I imagine that common sense would tell you that if you are going to interact with students through such a site, to have a separate one from personal friends and to mark such pages private. With the story not long ago about Stacy Snyder I am wondering if there will be restrictions posed for personal sites as well and how that will fare.