Keeping Kids Safe Online with SVU Detectives Trish Gould & Hailey DiGiovanni

A single DM can turn into a case file, and most families never see it coming. We sit down with Cape Coral Police Department Special Victims Unit Detectives Trish Gould and Hailey DiGiovanni to talk plainly about internet crimes against children, what they’re seeing right now, and why the digital world moves faster than a kid’s judgment.

We get specific about how these situations start on everyday platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and even games like Roblox. We also explain the behind-the-scenes pipeline many parents don’t know exists: social platforms can flag suspected minor activity and send reports through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which then routes cyber tips to local law enforcement. If your child thinks a disappearing message means “no consequences,” this conversation is the reality check.

We also dig into "sextortion" and how it often begins with consensual sharing before threats, pressure, and fear take over, including scenarios tied to teen relationships. Then we shift to what helps: open, ongoing talks; knowing passcodes; checking devices regularly; reviewing hidden folders and recently deleted content; and using iPhone Screen Time to spot high-use apps. 

Transcript

Meet The Special Victims Unit

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Copcast. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg. And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the public affairs office. Today we have two guests from our special victims unit. I'll just let you guys kind of introduce yourselves and uh tell us a little bit about you, what you do with the department, where you've um come from. You want to start?

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Sure. Um I'm Trish Gould. I've been with CCPD since like April of 2021. Um I started here on patrol for a few years, and then um I've been in SVU. Like going on up almost three years.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

SVU, for people who are listening who don't know what that is, what is SVU?

SPEAKER_03 0:46

It stands for Special Victims Unit. So we investigate uh child sex crimes, child abuse, child neglect, um adult sex crimes, elder abuse, elder neglect, uh internet crimes against children.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Some of the worst crimes that we see. Those are the major ones that we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what about you? Tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Um, Detective DJ Ovani. I've been with the department since July 2015. Um, I was on patrol for about two and a half years, and then I moved to school resource officer in 2018, and I was the resource officer at Golf Elementary for three years. And then since then, I've been in the major crimes unit since 2021, and then specifically special victims unit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

For for those who don't know, at some point we had like our violent crimes unit and special victims unit just called major crimes, and then there were so many nuances just between the two that it's easier to split them and have specialized areas, especially when we get into what we're talking about today, which is internet crimes against children. I think that's like a very specific niche field. I don't know much about it. So this is like not just for me to learn and everybody else to learn today. So I think it's a really good opportunity to talk about some of the things that you've been seeing, what we're looking at, what we want parents to know just to educate people a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, definitely. I think this day and age, all the kids, no matter the age, I mean, I've I swear I see eight-year-olds with cell phones, iPhones, little computers in their hands. So this is a really pertinent topic.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a lot different from when we mostly all grew up, cell phones weren't as prevalent. At least I know of when I grew up, same thing with internet. So now it we're just in a digital age and it's just gonna keep growing and becoming, I guess, more evolved into new things.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Definitely.

How Kids Get Pulled In Online

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So, what kind of stuff are you guys seeing right now when it comes to internet crime, specifically with children?

SPEAKER_03 2:36

We're seeing um a lot of mainly teens, but even younger than teens. Like we've had elementary school age kids, middle school age kids, um, and they're sending inappropriate pictures to others. Sometimes it's people their own age, but unfortunately, sometimes it's people that are well above their age. Um, that's the most frequent thing that we're we're seeing.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

So, how does that happen? Like, what does that process look like? Because if I was a parent, I'd be like, well, my kid wouldn't voluntarily send pictures like that to a 40-year-old guy. Like, how does that end up coming across your desk?

SPEAKER_03 3:12

A lot of it starts with social media. Uh, so whether it's like Snapchat or Instagram, I mean, and sometimes it's kids that they go to school with, they're messaging and whatnot, and they hear from their friends that, oh, this is this is what we do. We just send pictures out, not realizing the consequences of once they're out there, they're out there. You don't know who actually has them in in their hands. Uh, even some of it starts with games like Roblox, and that's a huge game amongst younger kids, but you can send messages in Roblox and you don't necessarily know who you're talking with. So um, and Roblox isn't necessarily the only platform, but that's a frequent one that we see.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Uh yeah, I think it's a combination of how we get these types of cases, um, not only from the parents reporting it to Cape Coral Police Department, but also with um National Center for Missing Exploited Children. Um, all the platforms, and obviously there are so many, and there's ones that I don't even know, but some of the major ones that we see are Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. They're always monitoring people's pages. And they they monitor to see who you're friends with, what activities you're liking, what posts you're liking, what you're uploading, and if they can determine that you're possibly a minor and it's an appropriate activity, whether it's chatting images or videos, they contact National Center for Missing and Exploiting Children. And that's how we get a lot of these reports. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

So you don't necessarily see, I had always just been under the impression that um uh it had let you know and notified you when like someone was in possession of like child pornography, like uh, you know, like you think the old creepy dude type of thing, but it's it actually flags like minors that have possession of that stuff as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, especially if they're uploading it, saving it, or reposting it. That's I feel like a lot of ours are those types of cases where we are having to do educational discussions with the parents and the children.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, I think that these kids, they're so young to be having these devices because they can't grasp the internet. They can't grasp that, oh, on Snapchat I send this picture and it disappears in 10 seconds. Like, no, this is forever. Someone could screenshot it, someone could save it, then it they could send it to a bunch of other people. And so once something's on the internet, it truly is on the internet forever.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Right. And that's that's what's important because a lot of times, especially with Snapchat, you think whatever you sent is gone. It's not. We can see what they've sent, other people can screenshot it, obviously, and do whatever they want. And it's kind of what we tell these children, parents, if you don't want your something like your parent or teacher to see, you shouldn't be posting that type of stuff or sending it via text or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Absolutely. And I think a lot of this, I know you mentioned like the Roblox and the gaming platforms. Are a lot of the times these kids sending these communications to people that they think may be kids their own age but are actually grown adults? Is that where you're seeing a lot of that?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, I I think it's it's both. There are some people, I think unknown persons that don't lie about their age, and then some that absolutely do. They say that they're around the kids' same age to make that child feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Yeah, and sometimes it's even the kids are fine with talking with an adult because they figure, oh, it's fine. I'm here in Cape Coral and they're wherever. And they're not realizing that they're giving out so much information that you can easily track down where people live. Just the background of a photo. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's that park. They must live near there. They say that they go to this school. And so suddenly it becomes very easy to find where this child could be located. When in their mind they're like, Oh, I didn't tell them anything, and I'm just sending pictures, it's fine. Um, so and we also have kids that when they sign up for a platform, they might make it so that it looks like they're an adult. But um, as Detective D Giovanni was saying, these platforms can still sort through that and they can still determine that they believe this person is a juvenile, even though they might have put on their oh, I'm 26 years old.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Just depending on the type of things they're they're posting or their images, the platform can still have a good strong feeling that they're a juvenile and they'll still send the cyber tip our way.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Right. It's interesting. These kids not only having to worry about other people like getting access to their images that they didn't intend, but also someone's always watching, you know, these agencies are

Sextortion And Real Legal Consequences

SPEAKER_00 7:40

watching. So that's another angle of it that these kids need to be paying attention to too.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah, I think I've also seen where we have like some exploitation cases where they they will like voluntarily send a picture, but then they I correct like you can walk us through it, but like they threaten them and say, like, oh well, if you don't do this or send more, then I'm gonna post it, and then you run into uh basically like a vicious cycle of them being afraid that something's gonna happen to them, their pictures, they'll send it to their parents. Do you guys get a lot of those cases?

SPEAKER_03 8:11

We do. Uh it's frequently referred to as like sextortion. Um so sextortion isn't the the word sextortion is not within any Florida State statute that we can charge, but it's falls with within extortion. Um so we do have those cases, uh unfortunately fairly common. Uh and it's uh oftentimes when the images are sent from one person to another on a consensual basis. But as we've been saying, once it gets out to that person, and then if you're suddenly on bad terms, we see it a lot with like boyfriends and girlfriends or some kind of dating situationship uh where they send it to them and it's fine. But once that relationship ends, then they'll either airdrop it to others, they'll post it on a page, they'll s text it to their buddies, stuff like that. And then once it's out, it's it's hard for us to get it taken down.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Absolutely. It's scary. And, you know, for adults and children alike, it's this it's the cautionary tale of like, don't do this, you know. You may think you're just innocently sending your partner a fun photo and then it turns into something like this. It makes you definitely want to think twice before you ever do it, period. Yeah, no matter your age.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Do you guys end up filing charges on a lot of these cases? And my other question, um, say like boyfriend, girlfriend relationship goes bad. Um, boyfriend has like a potential sex tortion case. Can the parent press charges on behalf of the child since they're a minor?

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Um, so I'll answer that first part on the cases where it's where they're sending out images of people. Yes, we have charged, and a lot of times it is other juveniles that are do that are doing this, and they have been charged with crimes.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Um, and as far as the other part, yeah, as far as like a parent pressing charges on behalf of their child, they can do that. I mean, of course, usually we do want the cooperation of the child. We're not going to force any child to be interviewed if they don't want to be. But if if everybody's on board and cooperating with the investigation, then yeah, we will absolutely do what we can to make sure the investigation is done thoroughly. And then oftentimes from there we send it on over to the state attorney's office and see if we've got actual charges to file.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, we had a case somewhat recently, I remember, involving uh juveniles. Um, and I believe that the person that ended up being charged was charged as an adult. Um, so these are definitely serious cases. It's something we take very seriously here at the department. And it must be tough for you guys to have to handle these types of cases involving children. I mean, I know it's your job, so you you kind of build up a a I don't know what the word is, a front to it. Like you kind of are able to separate, but it's gotta be tough. These are some of the worst cases that a department could get in theory.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Um I think for me, at least working with these cases, it's unfortunate that we have these types of crimes, especially against the most vulnerable to me, which is children, and that they have to be victims to this and go through this. But I think that's why it's so rewarding, at least for me, to work these cases and to see them through and see if somebody can be prosecuted.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Definitely. I'm sure as a mother it adds another layer too.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Oh, it totally does. But it's also scary because I worry about my child in the digital age when he's around, once he starts to get around cell phones and that type of stuff, it worries

What Parents Can Check Today

SPEAKER_01 11:40

me because it's just gonna do nothing but grow.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

For sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

What's something that you would like for parents to know? Like if you had like one big announcement.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I know, right? It was so much easier without cell phones growing up. But I think that's not realistic. Um, my thing would be as a parent, have these conversations with your kids. And if you're not too educated about social media apps or what's out there, do some research on it so that you can have these discussions with them and understand the importance of what they're looking at, what they're doing, and the potential consequences if they if they do post anything that's inappropriate. Um, I always tell parents a great resource is on the National Center for Missing Exploited website, they have resources for parents and kids and teachers, and it's called NetSmarts. And it it has tips of how to talk to your children and everything like that. It's fantastic. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, I think one of the big things is making sure to have these conversations with your kids.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Yeah. I think the one thing I would suggest for parents is to make sure that you're going through if your kids are gonna have cell phones or laptops or tablets. Um, I agree that in in this day and age, it's not realistic to say that they're just not gonna have that at all. Um, but if they're going to have it as a parent or a caregiver, guardian, even a big sibling, whoever, make sure that you're going through those devices on a regular basis. You need to have the kids um the the passcodes to get into the devices. If there's different passcodes or patterns or passwords or anything like that to get into the different apps, like make sure you are combing through it, including any hidden folders, any hidden apps recently deleted. Um a lot of parents don't realize even just a quick way to get an idea of what your kid is doing on at least like their cell phones, like iPhones especially, is if you go into the settings and you look at their screen time section, it'll show you the most used apps.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Oh, that's smart.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

And it'll show like, you know, for the past week, oh, they spent an hour and 10 minutes on TikTok or one hour on Instagram, and it'll break it down. So that kind of gives you an a rough idea immediately of of where they've been going. Um, but we still do encourage parents to to look deeper because we see it so frequently when we go out, we make contact with usually we try to make contact with the parents and the the children when we're notified of these cases. And the parents have no idea about these hidden sections because as as we all get older, technology advances and we don't always keep up with it. I've learned a lot talking to you guys. So as somebody that investigates this stuff, even me, sometimes when I'm going into the yes, these apps, because I don't I don't have Snapchat myself, and I get nervous looking at their phone because I'm like, I don't want to hit something, the the wrong button because I don't know how to use them. But it's important that we educate ourselves enough to know what to look out for.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

I think also um it's important that children understand don't just become friends with anybody online. Just be if you're gonna be friends with people and socialize online, do it with somebody that you've actually physically met, like in person that you know versus somebody you've never met before and have no relation with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

And if if anybody is uh talking to you, if if you're a child, if anybody's talking to you online, whether that is somebody that you don't know in person or you do know in person, and it crosses some kind of threshold where you feel uncomfortable, it's important that you know to go to some kind of trusted adult, whether that's your parent or a teacher or you know, whoever you trust, but to make sure that it stops there versus you kind of ignore it and then it just gets worse. The person keeps messaging you, and then next thing you know, it's become a more serious situation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Definitely. Um, one other thing, too, that I you just triggered in my mind is you guys must constantly have to be learning because these technologies, these apps, these games, these social media platforms are constantly changing. There's new ones popping up every day. You know, like all of a sudden I have stepchildren that are teenagers and I'll hear them talking about some app I've never heard of before or some feature on Snapchat that I didn't even know existed. And you really, you guys really have to have your your ear to the ground on what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Well, like she said, like sometimes when we're educating parents, they've never heard of stuff, specifically Snapchat, the for my eyes only section. A lot of people don't know about that. And that's where the kids are hiding a lot of inappropriate images or videos. But yeah, we it's a constant. We get these reports on a daily basis. So especially if we've never heard of a particular platform that's notifying us, we definitely have to look up and do our research about what's included in that app.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yeah. Do you guys see issues with like, cause as a as a parent, I feel like my parents personally are like, oh, we trust her, like she has a right to privacy. Do you kind of like almost preach against that? Because it's like it's not an issue of privacy, it's an issue of safety.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Right. And I think I I don't want children to be scared of the internet, obviously, because it's good. It has its good points to it. But then there's other negative aspects. And I think if parents just have open dialogue, take the 10 minutes a day or a week, whatever it is, and have open dialogue with them about what can happen on the internet and about these apps and the good and the bad, I think that kind of helps. But also maybe limit screen time like nighttime. Don't have it. By a certain time, you're done and take the phone away. Maybe look through their phone and see what they're doing. And just so that you're constantly aware of what your child's doing. Because I feel like a lot of times things just get missed. We're busy. Yeah, you know, kids are busy and you're tired, and just some things get missed.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

It's scary having kids in this day and age. My lord. Yeah. Yes. Very scary. Um,

Building Trust So Kids Speak Up

SPEAKER_00 17:45

okay, so we talked about talking to your kids. We talked about keeping an eye on your kids' technology, social media, all of that. Are there any other things that you would suggest or any other ways to prevent kids from falling prey to this type of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I think with kids too, sometimes they get nervous or embarrassed about things. But like she said, definitely go to a trusted adult, whether it's your parent or somebody else, even if it's just to have that type of conversation. That a lot of times would help. Cause I feel like children just kind of get into situations that they don't know how to get out of.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, I think so too. And even reading some of the reports when we get these come across our desk, you see that where they were afraid to go to their parent because they didn't want to get in trouble or they were embarrassed that this was happening to them. And um, it's important to have it's important for a parent to try to build that relationship with their child. But if it's not, you know, the if that doesn't work, at least having someone that your kid can go to for sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

And for parents to know that we have really good detectives that work on these cases that advocate for their children.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

We love what we do. So we're we're all about helping families and children and educating.

unknown 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Can you think of anything else?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

No, I think we just about killed everything. Great job.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

I feel smarter.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

I know, right? I know, right? You're gonna have to teach Drake about those phones.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

He's uh he's just hopefully not for a while.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

He's in a Miss Rachel right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Perfect. I think she's okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, I think so too. I think she's okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Anything else from you guys? Anything you can think of?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

You guys did so great. Thank you so much for coming on, and thank you guys for listening or watching. And we'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yeah, stay safe on the internet. On the internet, that's right.