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Suffer the Little Children
Episode 195: The Innocent (with Nate Lewis)
01:08:32
The Innocent is a nonprofit organization made up of active or retired law enforcement. Their mission is to train law enforcement agencies across the country about preventing and investigating child sex crimes. In this episode, my guest is Nate...
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- [01:53]
Lane (Podcast Host)
This podcast contains descriptions of violence against children in adult language and is not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Hi everyone and welcome to Suffer the Little Children, the podcast giving voices back to the victims of child abuse, murder and their families. I'm your host Lane and this is episode 195, the innocent with Nate Lewis. The innocent is a non profit organization made up of active or retired law enforcement. Their mission is to train law enforcement agencies across the country about preventing and investigating child sex crimes. In this episode, my guest is Nate Lewis, CEO and founder of the Innocent, whose passion and dedication to the mission are inspiring. You'll hear us talk about what led NAEP to launch the organization, the biggest threats facing American children right now, and how the community can take action to bring this essential training to their local law enforcement agency. This is the inspiring story of the Innocent. I won't bore you with a lot of preamble. Here's my conversation with Nate Lewis, which I hope you find as fascinating as I did.
- [03:24]
Nate Lewis
I have a history, really, in Hollywood. That's where most of my experience comes from. I work with Jim Caviezel, who played in the movie Sound of Freedom. And that's actually how I got introduced to trafficking, solicitation and ended up going international for several years before I started this organization to focus 100 here in the United States. And my team's mostly all active duty law enforcement, some retired as well. We're focused right here in the United States to protect our children. Our mission is to protect the innocence of the children in the United States.
- [03:57]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's awesome. And how did it come to be that you kind of entered into this arena?
- [04:02]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, it's interesting. The real truth is that I didn't think I would be here, but looking back in my life, I realized that things happen for a reason. And I was sexually abused about a week after my 12th birthday. And then years later, I actually was kidnapped and taken at gunpoint from some gang members. And, you know, I buried these things so deep that I kind of wanted to pretend they never happened. Really. A lot of most of them. Some of them I didn't share with anyone for a long time. And so, you know, I just moved on with my life. But then after really understanding what's going on in. And then going and working for a different organization and. And seeing the abuse of these children, it brought back some such a massive desire to want to prevent it from happening to somebody else, because I've lived through those experiences, so I didn't expect to be here. But I understand that, you know, things happened in my life for me to really fuel me to want to protect other children from anything like this ever happening to them.
- [05:10]
Lane (Podcast Host)
You've been through a lot, and what you're doing is amazing because going to speak from my experience, there have been so many extreme and provably false conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking and whatnot, that it kind of all sort of starts to roll past you at some point. You just have to kind of let it go by. But then I started looking into the stats and everything and how prevalent it really is, and it's pretty startling.
- [05:35]
Nate Lewis
It is, it is. You know, and what's unfortunate is that a lot of people, maybe they just don't understand or haven't done the research or they just don't work in this every single day. And, and we were just at a conference with 400 law enforcement officers from about 32 states and listening to the amount of cases that are being investigated currently is. It would blow people's mind. And so the fact that people don't know that this is happening, I think at some point they have to just stop and start looking at the realities of what's going on. And I, I also think that media and certain sources need to be better about sharing the, the realities of like, actual evidence. Like, these are the cases, this is what happened in court, and this is what were convicted. And, you know, people just need to see the, the truths about it and understanding, you know, human trafficking, people think it's just like some kids locked up in a moving van or on a freight liner or in a train or something. And, and the reality is, is under human trafficking, the umbrella, there's a lot of forms of trafficking and sex abuse that's. That occurs, that falls under that umbrella. And I think a lot of people are confused that it has to be, you know, them locked up in a cage or something like that, when that's not the reality. Expl. Form of trafficking. Voyeurism is a form of trafficking. And when it comes to child trafficking, the laws are quite a bit different. You don't have to prove the same elements of crime that you do with an adult, because children are not consensual, number one. And so I think there's this myth about what trafficking looks like, maybe from movies or something like that, when the reality is, is girls are being asked to send photos and adults are sending photos of themselves to children. And that does fall underneath those stat that they can be arrested for under the human trafficking statutes. You know, it's down underneath it in a subcategory, but it does fall underneath it. And I think people are not aware of that.
- [07:32]
Lane (Podcast Host)
No, I wasn't until I saw the information on your website and kind of started going down the rabbit hole on that. It's really interesting that it all falls under the same umbrella. So can you tell me, are these crimes kind of like the majority of crimes against children perpetrated by people they know, or is it more of A stranger danger sort of thing.
- [07:51]
Nate Lewis
Well, according to the Department of Justice, 90% of these sex crimes happened by somebody that they know or trust. Now, that doesn't mean that it's a family member all the time. Part of the grooming process, which we often see happens on social media or online. It's a psychological manipulation. And it's really pretty simple. I think a lot of married couples struggle with this, but the traffickers or offenders really have figured out that a lot of these girls, and they target some, the most vulnerable, but they, they use the common things that people need in life. It's just human nature, like attention, listening, you know, respect. A lot of these things they're giving these young individuals and, you know, any grown adult likes to have that just be heard. They do a really good job with that. And that's kind of how it. It starts. It's a psychological manipulation. And actually trafficking doesn't have to be physical. Trafficking can fall under the psychological aspect as well, where you're using fear or different tactics to force them into doing some things out of what they fear might happen as well. So there's a lot, there's a lot that goes into it. So the answer is that 90% is, is from somebody they know or trust. But that doesn't mean it's a family where they usually get to know them over a period of time or whatever, and then they actually trust them. Some survivors that I've spoken to, they didn't get into the life thinking that they were going to sell their body for sex. They got into it because they thought that person loved them.
- [09:21]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
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Nate Lewis
You know, they thought they were in love. And then it turned at some point, through manipulation, they got these girls to believe that they were falling in love with this person. And a lot of them still have some sort of bond to them emotionally as well, even after the abuse and after other people have abused them. And so, yeah, that's really what it comes down to is we be careful. And it's so hard because even young girls that we talk to and we try to explain what's going on, it's so hard for them to believe that it's not true.
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Lane (Podcast Host)
Yep.
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Nate Lewis
Like they've built such a strong relationship and connection with these individuals that it's hard for them to not believe it because they're emotionally attached to this individual.
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Lane (Podcast Host)
How could they not be true? Yeah.
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Nate Lewis
Right.
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Lane (Podcast Host)
And I think there needs to be a lot more early education, at least middle school about those types of relationships, whether it's going to be a trafficking situation. Or domestic abuse, something like that. I really do feel strongly that things like this need to be taught to children. Know what to avoid 100%.
- [10:24]
Nate Lewis
And I say this very often. We people want to talk about education. I talk about that's the first line of defense. We all have to be educated from great resources. And, and here's the thing is all these parents are like, we need education, we need education. And that's true. And so do teachers and so does law enforcement as well. But really the target are the children. So I think first and foremost the children have to be educated on this type of thing. And there's some, there's some resources out there we're going to be providing. I'm actually working with another organization on developing a really in depth interactive education for youth. I think it would work for parents and school resource officers as well. But we have to start having these conversations and the. Unfortunately, parents don't really know where to start with these conversations because they're not educated as well.
- [11:10]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [11:11]
Nate Lewis
So there's a lot coming on. There are a lot of resources, there's a lot of organizations that are really getting into this. This has become more popular now. Before, where people were like we mentioned at the beginning of this is kind of not believing it. It's even with law enforcement, oh man, it's incredible how far they're coming. One of the classes that we just went to, like one of the last ones, it's so incredible to see what they're teaching in the approach they have now because before it was like, oh, these are criminals, arrest them. And if they have drugs on them, arrest them for drugs too. They're prostitutes, you know, and that was just the mindset because that's how they were, that's how they were trained and they didn't know any different. But now they're actually training law enforcement to look at it differently. Even patrol officers, not just detectives and investigators, but people who work drug crimes, they just are looking at this differently. And then the approach is just incredible. It's so incredible how they're really starting to build relationships with these survivors from the very beginning and not just put them into an interrogation, but build the trust. They've been told over and over not to trust anyone, especially the police. And they've probably had run ins with the police in the past and you know, their fear of getting arrested and then these cops who are arresting them, that doesn't help them get a job later in life. And so how do you just be with them? How do you be a person Maybe the first person in years that's just been there to listen. Really, it just goes back to the human thing again. Listen to them, respect them, and. And just be there for them and not. You don't need anything from them. And that's the thing is people have needed things for so long from these individuals, and when the police come in, they instantly need to question, they need answers, they need something from them. And. And that's part of the training that's going into law enforcement is like, when do we stop just needing something from them and just being. Yeah, and what can I do for you? You know, asking them what's their favorite food or what did they dream of, you know, being when they were a kid and. And just start asking them questions about them. And it's just a different approach. And it's. It's. It's very effective, very effective approach.
- [13:20]
Lane (Podcast Host)
They probably haven't felt like a human being in so long, and it didn't matter to anyone what they liked or who they were.
- [13:27]
Nate Lewis
That's right. No one really cared about them or asked the questions that really was about them and caring about them. Yeah, and they know it. They feel it immediately. It's. It's, you know, within three days, they make a shift, and all of a sudden they say, like, when are you gonna ask me about what's been going on? And it's really saying, well, whenever you're ready. And so it could take three days. Which I know people think, like, well, that's a long time, but that's not very long. When you talk about years of incredibly violent abuse that's been occurring, the trauma.
- [14:00]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Has to be so deep. And that's why I saw on, I think it was maybe your Facebook page where there was an image that was something about, if you wait until it's already happened, it's too late.
- [14:11]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, absolutely is. And that's really our focus. We're focused on preventative. Right. So how do you be proactive in investigations? Law enforcement has been reactive, and they have. They have individuals who are. Specific job is to react to cyber tips and crimes. And, you know, law enforcement reacts to 911 calls. You know, like, my daughter's claiming these things happen to her. Where this approach is being proactive. How do we go out into the darkness and we go undercover just like we would buying drugs or whatever. How do you go undercover online? Since 37 million children are on social media in the United States right now, how do you go online being a child and get recruited and build these cases and make arrests. So you have to be proactively putting hours in to do these crimes. Instead of reacting in that way, you're getting some of these buyers. You know, if there wasn't buyers, there would be no traffickers. Right. And so the easy first approach is to, before you get into the organized crime, is go after the buyers. So that's super easy, actually. It really is. So go after the buyers and start just causing some risk out there for them. Because right now there's not a lot of people doing proactive work, so they're not really worried about it. And so I think that that's what's so critical. One, being proactive. But two, building the strongest cases. You have to have these investigative tools that avoid, you know, like entrapment and certain other things. You have to build a case that prosecutors feel a hundred percent confident taking through the process and eventually, potentially put it in front of a jury and going to trial. And then if you have that strong case, you get higher conviction rates and you usually get longer sentences. So that's why this. Well, everything we provide to law enforcement is for free. We're funded by the people. So this training is so important because we want to build these teams of investigators that are really effective and efficient at what they're doing so they can get all the things I just mentioned. The case is, is pretty much a slam dunk. And then the sentencing comes and follows that with that. Now we have to work with the prosecutors and the judges to make sure that they're upholding those sentencing guidelines, because they are just guidelines, really. And so making them understand the severity of this. And it's hard. It's hard for people, just general people in, you know, investigators, judges, prosecutors, unless they've spent time, the prosecutors that I've seen and worked with, that work a lot of these crimes, and some of them work only these crimes. And they have to actually talk to the children, they have to actually see these girls, and they have to hear these things and walk through it time after time after time after time. They understand how important this is and prioritizing these children because, you know, a lot of prosecutors have a lot of different cases. And for this to not be the most important case on your caseload means that you probably don't have a ton of experience, you don't understand, and you probably need to spend more time with the victim, not the volunteer of this, but the victim of these crimes and the survivors, and understand from their point of view, you know, what their life's been like. And maybe with some sympathy and empathy. Prosecutors and judges will push these cases across the finish line and pulled them to, you know these criminals like put them away for as long as possible.
- [17:42]
Lane (Podcast Host)
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- [18:20]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
I've got Dan Morgan here on the pod. Say hi Dan.
- [18:23]
Dan Morgan
Hey, how's it going today?
- [18:24]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
It's going good, man. Tell us who you are and what you do.
- [18:27]
Dan Morgan
I'm Dan Morgan. I'm an attorney and a managing partner partner at Morgan and Morgan, which is America's largest injury law firm.
- [18:33]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
That's pretty awesome. I think I saw a billboard of yours recently that said 20 billion won. 20 billion is an insane number.
- [18:42]
Dan Morgan
Yeah, 20 billion recovered. It's actually I think somewhere north. Probably closer to 22, 23 after this year. And each year we get bigger and badder and our army grows. So the number will hopefully keep getting bigger and bigger as time goes on.
- [18:54]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Awesome. So how does someone get in contact with Morgan and Morgan? What would I do if I got into an accident?
- [19:00]
Dan Morgan
Probably the easiest way is dialing pound law. That's £529 from your cell phone. We are always open. Our call center is always waiting to take your call. 247 365.
- [19:10]
Nate Lewis
Wow.
- [19:10]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Dan Morgan from Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. Thanks for coming by the show.
- [19:14]
Dan Morgan
Thanks for having me. Visit forthepeople.com for an office near you.
- [19:22]
Nate Lewis
The national Sex offenders registry says on average now a lot of stats are difficult. So I, I believe that this stat is from interviewing some of these or looking at their activity. But anyway the stat is from the national Sex offenders registry. So the average predator or pedophile is what they say pedophile will abuse on average 117 victims in their lifetime. Now it seems hard for people to to grasp that but here's the reality of it. If you started abusing children, I'll go kind of late. We've arrested people under the age of 30 but let's just say you start at 30 and I know of a case where a 71 year old was just arrested for trying to have sex with a 14 year old.
- [20:04]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Wow.
- [20:04]
Nate Lewis
So let's just say 30 to 70, 40 years. Right. So if you take 117 divided by 40, that will give you the idea of like what is that, three, I think a year. That's easy.
- [20:16]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [20:17]
Nate Lewis
For a predator to abuse, especially if.
- [20:19]
Lane (Podcast Host)
They put themselves into a position or a job where they have access to kids, which they tend to do.
- [20:25]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, well. And they don't even have to be in a job, they can pay for it. I mean we are, we, we live on these apps and forums and websites where this is happening. They could probably offend three people in a weekend if they wanted to. Wow. And so, you know, I mean it could be a weekly occurrence if they can afford it. And so that number I believe could be much higher. If you're looking at a lifespan now, if you broke it down into per year, it's going to be different, but that's in their lifetime. And part of that I think is important to cover is that most of these people don't get caught early on. Right, right. And so that's the problem. That's why it's so important to do proactive work as well. But you're looking at people who may have gotten caught and now they have to look into what they've done. But thank goodness they got caught and they have to register as a sex offender. But even registering as a sex offender doesn't mean that they're going to not reoffend, right?
- [21:21]
Lane (Podcast Host)
No, yeah, no, unfortunately not. It's so important that what you're doing. Is this pretty new. Did you just recently launch the non profit?
- [21:30]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, we're about, I would say almost 19 months in. So yeah, it's relatively new. We spent the first year really developing what this was and trying and we had investigators going out and doing different things and we thought it was going to be an investigations role and what we're going to do and assist and aid. I had task force officers with federal agencies that could have jurisdiction in any state. But what we've found is the most effective is we go into a community, we have an agency usually that contacted us, host a training, but they also are in, they have relationships with all the other departments. So we let them know there's free training, which free training in, in some of these states it's accredited so that they get hours and they recruit five to six departments in their area and one to three to four of their top investigators from each department. So now you're building the task force in a community. Right? And that's really what this came to. This is year we really started launching building task forces and communities. So now you have a team of 12 to 18, 20 individuals who have the training. But our, our training isn't just like PowerPoint. There is PowerPoint, but then we go into the actual operation. It's a really an operations planning course and everybody has a role and responsibility. And then we actually are running a live op. So we've gone online and we've set up these accounts and these guys are running these things. And then the third day is the rest day. And so they're actually walking through and we're just there to advise them if they have questions or thing. But we're walking them through a full undercover operation from beginning to and covering the laws in their state and warrants and all that stuff. And then when we leave, they continue to do that work. They have a couple people who stay undercover and then they have an arrest day. They set a date. We're like, hey guys, we're getting back together on this day. I have all these people lined up and they continue it. We just posted this morning and last night one of the departments that we've been training, these guys are just crushing it. They have not stopped and I love to see that. And that's exactly what we want. And you also want to investigators and agencies that support this. But these investigators, this one particularly, I mean he was so pro active but excited to learn more, do more and to be more efficient and, and have these tactics that he can use to most officers, and I think it's important to understand this too. Most officers, whether it's a firefighter, paramedic, whoever, when they show up on a crime scene, there's some sort of trauma that comes from it. But when it involves a child, whether it's a car accident or house fire, whatever, it's, it's much more traumatic for the individual. And these officers are having to deal with a lot of these child violent cases. Right. But it's incredible because they want to do these because it's so much more rewarding. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, man, I can't ever do another embezzling case or fraud case again when there's innocent children out here. Like, I feel like this is the most rewarding thing and I have heard over and over this is the most rewarding work I've ever done. This is the best day in 20 years. This is the best day I've ever had. And these are people who've done amazing things in their life, like seized insane amounts of drugs and. But to be able to do this type of work and it's so hard for the individuals, but they get, it's so much reward.
- [25:02]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [25:03]
Nate Lewis
From doing these type of things. So that's why. And again, it's really important to do the proactive work in. In. That's why we think that bring us in. My team are active duty law enforcement and retired. They have tons of experience doing this. Why would you not as a department and why would you not as a community, start a fundraiser to bring us in? But not only just us, we're bringing in equipment, software, technologies, all these things to make them very efficient for a specific crime. And that's child sex crimes.
- [25:36]
Lane (Podcast Host)
I do want to mention that. Yeah, I've said it a number of times. I have so much respect for the first responders for everything that they have to see and deal with. And that's the ones who only have to deal with it once or twice in a career. But the people who are specifically looking at these cases and looking for these cases have a whole nother level of respect. But I wanted to ask you. So we're talking about county law enforcement, municipal police departments, sheriff's offices, things like that. It's not just big offices, it's all kinds of them.
- [26:06]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. Oh, it is all kinds of them. So we range from, I can't even give away some of them really small towns in middle of, kind of not really the middle of nowhere. You have to understand these, these individuals will drive four hours. So they'll, they'll wake up in the morning and say bye to their wife and call in sick and drive four hours to rape a child and then drive home and pretend like they just got off work. So it doesn't have to be like any metropolitan city, it just has to be within an hour or two or four from a somewhat metropolitan city. So we're doing some small agencies. We're also training the second largest sheriff's office in the states, potentially the world. And we're also going to be working with one of the largest populated states attorney general's office, training all of their officers. So it can range from a massive department to small communities. We never thought it would be big municipalities. They were already funded. And it's funny because one of the, the really large one is like, well, how do we go about your lodging and all this stuff? And we're like, no, I don't think you understand. This is free. You guys don't pay for anything. Like not only does it like free up your budget, you actually save money because you don't have to send people to training, you know, so you're actually making money on this stuff. And, and they have the money. But it, that's not what this is about is us getting paid. This is about us providing tools and tactics for law enforcement to be proactive, you know, and really just go after it and get after it. And yeah, it's across the board. It really is. Small towns, big towns, medium towns. But when we first started out, you know, our scaled operation course was about. We know it's hard for small agencies. That's why we don't try to get one small agency to put 10 guys to become a task force. We're asking for one or three maybe and then recruit the other guys and ladies from around your community from all the different departments and ask them for one or two. And that's so much easier for a chief or a sheriff to give up one or two individuals for a three day training that potentially could work once a month or once a quarter on these investigations and these roundups. And they don't always have to show up to meet these guys can be like, okay, it's the rest day, we're going to go to this guy's house. This work, this, they can go around. But it's so much easier for the high ranking officials to say yes when I only have to give up one body for three days and it's paid for. And so that's kind of where we're at and what we're doing. And it's, we've had some really good success.
- [28:37]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's really great. It's so inspiring actually. Now you have some background in, in dealing with this globally. Do you want to talk about that at.
- [28:46]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, you know, I try to focus mostly now just inside the U.S. but yeah, you know, I think that was really part of what fueled me. So I can't really deny it. But yeah, I did. I got to travel to maybe a dozen countries and see all kinds of different things. And then part of it wasn't really just doing the investigations, although I was part of several of these undercover investigation, whatever. A lot of it too was just going to aftercare homes and vetting them for potentially providing grants and certain things and spending time with the survivors and the children and understanding that side of it, which I think is so important when you understand where they are compared to where they've been and where they're going and to see all. All forms. So see children in trafficking, see children in healing centers, and see them two years out being successful at whatever they wanted to do and become. So to see the reality of the success stories is really important too, and just understanding that whole side of it. So, yeah, I had tons of experiences. My first one was pretty difficult and really fueled an extraordinary fire inside of me. And then I actually dealing with my own personal things because, man, I was unhappy. Let's just say that I was carrying emotions that I did not want inside my body because I was pretty upset with humanity, you know, and people that could do such horrific things to children. And it just put me in a difficult place. I tried to get rid of on my own and realized later that I couldn't do it. I needed tools and I needed to have routines and. And things that I could do to take care of myself. And. And that's another thing. In the future, we're going to be doing is building these programs for law enforcement departments to make sure that individuals are healthy.
- [30:31]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Oh, good.
- [30:32]
Nate Lewis
You know, and their families as well. So.
- [30:36]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah, because even if they want to do this and seek out these cases, it still traumatizes them. It has to.
- [30:42]
Nate Lewis
Oh, it for sure does. It does affect people all in different levels. But there's no way to say that it doesn't affect you in some way.
- [30:50]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah, I would think so. How many law enforcement agencies have you trained or have looked into it for training?
- [30:58]
Nate Lewis
So so far to date this year, we've trained 11 departments in a couple weeks this year. Just this year? Yeah. I would say in about three weeks from now, we'll probably have 18. I think it's about 18 under our belt. And then by the end of the year, I would say we're gonna have trained well. Well over 70 officers this year alone.
- [31:21]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's awesome. And then they form a task force in their area. And that way when a crime comes up, or if they're trying to be proactive and draw these people out, then it's really not taking much away from their individual departments.
- [31:35]
Nate Lewis
It's really not. And it's. It is a sting operation. But sometimes what it is, is these individuals can commit crimes online. They don't have to, like, show up to commit the crime. Like I mentioned earlier, an adult sending a photo of themselves to a child is a crime. So all we need to do is identify them and show up at their work, at their home, wherever. So it's not like, oh, we got to set up this whole sting operation and get all these places set up, and we have to pay for hotels or whatever, you know, like, no, if you're communicating with the minor immoral purposes or you're sending photos or asking or promoting these crimes, making the elements of crime, we don't have to have you show up and meet them. It's just like, all right, today's the day, guys. And they pick one day and they just go get them this, like, show up. And so, yeah, it's much easier than people think, to be honest with you. It's unfortunate that it's that easy to be honest with you.
- [32:35]
Lane (Podcast Host)
The Internet is a great thing, but also a very, very bad thing in so many ways. And that's another thing I wanted to ask you about. And it can be on the record or off the record, whatever you prefer. I don't know how you feel about this. So there are a lot of vigilante channels on, say, YouTube, people who are conducting these stings without law enforcement assistance or backing or anything. How do you feel about that? Do you think that's helpful or not?
- [33:01]
Nate Lewis
It's actually not helpful. And I appreciate the heart of vigilantes, and we talk about this very often. And here's what I would say to them. Well, first and foremost, what's your motive? Right. And so are you trying to get subscribers likes views? I don't know what it is. Or are you trying to physically assault someone, embarrass them? I don't know what your motive is, but we should look into that. But here's the reality of it. They're not trained. Some law enforcement isn't trained. You'll see cases where they did an illegal search and seizure or entrapment or whatever it is. So a lot of these vigilantes will even come to law enforcement, say, like, hey, I got this case. This guy, he's showing up, and if you look at the conversation they've had, you're like, oh, my gosh, this guy will get zero time, won't even get probation because you broke the law 18 times in your conversation. So. So that's one part of it. So law enforcement can't take it. Number two, all you're doing is making them become better criminals, right? They're going to not get locked up and spend time in prison, and they won't become a registered sex offender, which is going to make their life very difficult. And if they do anything while they're a registered sex offender, they can go back to jail. So they're not going to have any of that, and they're just going to get smarter and be more cautious about it. Right. In addition to that, just being quite honest, law enforcement don't love a lot of these individuals because their motive might be to get famous. Right. Or to build their channel or whatever it may be. Cops are doing this every single day. And you know what? They're getting mud thrown on them, attacked left and right. But these YouTubers are like heroes to the public. And I think that the public, you know, one, we can't just go out there and promote this. It's actually kind of taboo in law enforcement to, like, video everything and put it out there. Everything is videoed, but it's for investigations. Right. You have your body cam so that you can follow these cases and it'll hold up in court. Getting stuff on videos is great for us, for law enforcement, but it's not something that we're going to put on a YouTube channel to gain likability. Now, does this serve a purpose? Absolutely. It can bring awareness to a cause. It can show people the realities of how easy it is and how prominent this is. But I think that it would be much better if they could somehow work in conjunction with law enforcement and get them on earlier. Because guess what? Even if law enforcement is involved, prosecution has to take that case. And prosecutors, we bring prosecutors into our training a month or two, sometimes three, before we even show up, because we need the prosecutors buy in and we want to make sure we're following what they feel comfortable taking into court if it ends up going to trial. And so I. I understand their passion. That's how we feel as well. And I think that you just have to channel that in some certain way and not go out. And. And lastly, I would say this to the vigilante groups. If you're listening for your own protection, you're putting yourself at extreme risk. You know, there's cases where guys have shown up with firearms and pulled them on the cops.
- [36:14]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Sure.
- [36:15]
Nate Lewis
And so I think that you're putting yourself in a place, if you're not trained to approach these individuals in a safe manner and to de. Escalate this violence that could potentially occur. They're actually escalating the violence. In a lot of these cases, you're putting yourself in danger. And I think that there's just really not a place for it. I understand it, but we just need law enforcement to handle these type of situations, and we need these guys to get put away and taken off of the streets because you're not removing them from our streets. And here's the thing that I can say. I wish you could understand the depths of these crimes because there are individuals that I know of and it disgusts me. It just makes me literally ill and want to throw up. And they're abusing children and they're doing sick things. And if they're not in a cage somewhere, they will continue to do it and they'll be clever about it. So we've gotta work together and we've got to get law enforcement whether you're. Maybe these vigilantes can find a way to raise funds to do these type of things with investigations and get the law enforcement funded. Get them the training that they need in a specific crime. That's just my feeling and I think my entire team's feeling about these vigilante groups. We understand your heart and we know where it's coming from. But let's channel that energy in the most effective way that we can.
- [37:41]
Lane (Podcast Host)
I agree. It's a lot of the time it is all about just views, clicks, getting the ad revenue. And some of them really do unfortunately just want to punch somebody and it's just not the time or place to do it. Yeah, you're right. If they're just going to be getting off and not prosecuted because of something that these people have done incorrectly in their quote unquote investigation, it's not worth it at all.
- [38:03]
Nate Lewis
It's not. They end up hiding better, unfortunately.
- [38:07]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Sure, yeah. They're going to know what to look for.
- [38:09]
Nate Lewis
They're harder to find.
- [38:12]
Lane (Podcast Host)
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Nate Lewis
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- [38:49]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
I've got Dan Morgan here on the pod. Say hi Dan.
- [38:52]
Dan Morgan
Hey, how's it going today?
- [38:53]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
It's going good, man. Tell us who you are and what you do.
- [38:56]
Dan Morgan
I'm Dan Morgan. I'm an attorney and a managing partner at Morgan and Morgan, which is America's largest injury law firm.
- [39:02]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
That's pretty awesome. I think I saw a billboard of yours recently that said 20 billion. Wonderful. 20 million is an insane number.
- [39:11]
Dan Morgan
Yeah, 20 billion recovered. It's actually, I think somewhere north, probably closer to 22, 23 after this year. And each year we get bigger and badder and our army grows. So the number will hopefully keep getting bigger and bigger as time goes on.
- [39:24]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Awesome. So how does someone get in contact with Morgan and Morgan, what would I do if I got into an accident?
- [39:29]
Dan Morgan
Probably the easiest way is dialing pound law. That's £529 from your cell phone. We are always open. Our call center is always waiting to take your call. 24, 7, 365.
- [39:39]
Nate Lewis
Wow.
- [39:39]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Dan Morgan from Morgan and Morgan, America's large injury law firm. Thanks for coming by the show.
- [39:43]
Dan Morgan
Thanks for having me. Visit forthepeople.com for an office near you.
- [39:51]
Lane (Podcast Host)
When it comes to someone, say, like Chris Hansen, at least he has the law enforcement backing and has all these consultants and people so that hopefully his team knows what they're doing. But at the same time it's really hard to tell people, well, this person does it, so you shouldn't do it, you know.
- [40:08]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, well, I hear. So from my understanding with Chris Hansen is that the law enforcement was doing all of it. He was just there when they showed up to record it.
- [40:18]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah, I think they had some volunteers, but I do think they were working with the law enforcement instead of directly with the Dateline team or whoever it was.
- [40:26]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. And I think that it may have started a little different, but then they quickly, hopefully realized that, hey, we need these guys to really go away. Because I imagine some of the cases probably didn't go very far and so they had to probably readjust. I don't know. I haven't looked into it that much. But what I've heard is that they did work with law enforcement. I don't know if that was the whole time or at some point, but that they realized that they had to really have law enforcement there and they were just there to interview the guys originally. So. And that's a hugely popular thing. And honestly we. We get that all the time. Like, oh, wait, so you're like To Catch a Predator Chr. Hansen. Like, kinda, because kind of we are, you know.
- [41:08]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yes. Kind of what we do to a whole different degree.
- [41:12]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:13]
Lane (Podcast Host)
The things that law enforcement has to hear, I imagine is an awful lot worse than what we would hear. The sanitized version on tv.
- [41:20]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
- [41:22]
Lane (Podcast Host)
And the videos they have to watch and things like that. That's has to go so deep into their psyche that I think it's, it's a great idea that you guys are going to be looking into taking care of those people as part of the whole program.
- [41:37]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, mental wellness. It's all about mentally being well and, and having a support group from the top down inside your department. And there's still this stereotype inside of what does therapy look like and counseling look like? And can that come back and bite me in the end if I'm in an officer involved shooting and all these things and components. But we need it from them and then we need it from the family. And to be honest with you, just. This is just my personal experience. The family members need it too, because they're the ones that are dealing with the individual who's carrying the trauma home with them. And there needs to be a network. And then if they understand it better too, they can be better support for the individual who's working these cases. And then we have to just get rid of the stigma the officers have. We know it's hard. We are in an interesting time. Before, the older generations were like, what, you're weak?
- [42:34]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [42:34]
Nate Lewis
You can't go. You know, and now it's changing a little bit. And I do believe even the generations that are just coming into law enforcement will have such a different experience. I do believe that it will be required at some point. Certain things are required after certain incidences. And I think that we just need to find a way. The last organization required it. I'm trying to require it. It's hard to really force somebody to go, especially when their schedules are so busy. But they have to fit it into their schedule as part of their work hours. That has to be accepted by the department and by the decision makers. That's part of their job in the turnover and all that you can avoid and keeping them healthy. They're actually better at their job. There's so many reasons why you should do these things. And so we need to get to that place. We need to get to where we know confidently that the department's gonna support them and look at it as like, hey, it's part of your job is.
- [43:28]
Lane (Podcast Host)
To go get this secondary trauma, I think it's called, or something along those lines. But it's such a real concept. And if more of law enforcement accepts that and makes it a requirement between law enforcement all the way up to prosecutors and even social workers and people like that, it all really affects them. No wonder there's turnover in these fields.
- [43:51]
Nate Lewis
Absolutely. How could it not? I don't understand how it couldn't. And I thought I was a pretty strong individual. I've gone through things in my life and thought I dealt with them, and, man, it definitely hurt. It wrecked me for a little bit. Not wrecked me, but it affected me, I guess.
- [44:06]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Sure. Just like any kind of trauma, especially when you're a child.
- [44:10]
Nate Lewis
Absolutely. Yeah. And it comes in, like. There's kind of like, little waves and then every so often, and it's not that often anymore, but then, like, a big wave will just come in and I'll sit on it for, like, a day. So I used to sit in, like, for three days. And that was one of the cool tools with some of the. You got to get a really good therapist, but was it's okay to sit in it for 10 minutes. Right. Like, you know, sometimes it might be longer, but you can't live in it for 10 days.
- [44:38]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah, right.
- [44:39]
Nate Lewis
And. And so understanding it, because you can't just ignore it. Right. You can't just bury it and pretend because you're just building a dam and it's piling up, and at some point, all. It all explodes. But you also have to have great routines on how you deal with it. And there's a lot of ways that people go about dealing with some of these things. Some people just have a punching bag, and they just literally punch it out. Some people run meditation, prayer. There's. There's a lot of different forms of people, you know, how they handle it and deal with it, and it's different for everyone. And just finding your way of how you can handle certain things. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of officers, alcohol helps handle it. And I think that it masks it, and it makes it easier, and it does. At the time, the officers think that it. It does actually make them feel better. Right. We can't argue that in the moment. Yeah, in the moment. But what that doesn't allow you to do, which is very important, is to actually feel it. You have to feel to heal. And that's the hardest part, is we don't want to feel these things.
- [45:44]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [45:44]
Nate Lewis
But in order to heal from that, you actually have to feel it. And so that's part of, I think, what we're gonna have to face. And it's hard. Trust me, it's hard. Like, for me, what. I don't drink at all, but I also try to eat extremely well, make sure I've taken my vitamins. But I'm also trying to get as much sleep as possible because it affects your sleep. And then if you keep affecting your sleep day in, day out, months, years, that's another recipe for, you know, just not good. And so you're adding all these components and also just having a balance, and that's where the family really plays into play, is understanding the individual's needs to reset, unwind, whether it's hang out with their buddies, go camping, fishing, whatever, play music, whatever that person needs to balance their life out. So it can't just be work, home, work, home, work home. They need to have an outlet, really. And so there's a lot to it. And we just, you know, hopefully we can get there with law enforcement departments accepting that.
- [46:47]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah. It's not just the families of the victims who need to learn and be able to support the victims. It's also law enforcement families. And the drinking would affect the family an awful lot there, too. So it's all full circle at some point.
- [47:00]
Nate Lewis
Yeah.
- [47:01]
Lane (Podcast Host)
What do you think the number one danger that children are facing right now in the US Would be?
- [47:06]
Nate Lewis
Without a doubt, it's social media.
- [47:09]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Okay.
- [47:10]
Nate Lewis
The number one, number two, and number three, actually. So I can actually tell you that the number one place where children are recruited is on Facebook, the second is Snapchat, and the third is Instagram. Let me explain a little bit of that. There's 37 million teenagers under the age of 18 on social media in the United States. 37 million.
- [47:31]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [47:32]
Nate Lewis
These individuals don't go out in public like they used to. Right. And only 2% of children that end up in trafficking are actually kidnapped. That means 98% are not. It makes sense if you think about it. Why would somebody go out into the streets where there's cameras on every corner and, you know, obviously their license plate, their face, everything's going to be tied to the crime. When they can try to hide their identity online and commit these crimes from the safety of their home behind a wall that they think is protecting their identity.
- [48:07]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [48:07]
Nate Lewis
Through different forms online. And where are the kids? Unfortunately, kids are on video games and on social media right now. They're not actually playing at playgrounds where everybody thinks their kids are not safe.
- [48:21]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right. And no, it's leaving their kids alone at the playground anymore anyway. No.
- [48:26]
Nate Lewis
And here's the thing is, is people are so concerned about, hey, I want to hover over my kids and all these things and make sure they don't go here and there. And I want to keep an eye on them. But are you allowing a phone into their bedroom behind closed doors?
- [48:39]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [48:40]
Nate Lewis
Because that's one of the most dangerous places you could be cooking dinner while your child is sitting in the living room. And you don't even know what that child's doing online. And here's the thing, it's not just the stuff, the threat of, oh, they have access to the world. There's no ratings on websites like gpg13 rated R. None of that exists. So they could be watching who knows what kind of content. But you're also, I think what's more to me a little more scary than what they're able to go out and see is who's able to walk in your door and sit next to them and talk to them basically on the couch in front of you while you're cooking dinner.
- [49:20]
Lane (Podcast Host)
And you don't even see them.
- [49:21]
Nate Lewis
You don't see them. And. And here's the other thing, speaking of not seeing them. This is for parents, I hope. One, you have a relationship with your children, but here's something that you should do. Look at all of their platforms, messaging systems, including texts, WhatsApp, messaging systems on Instagram, whatever. Make sure that the disappearing messages is disabled. Because now kids, and I don't know why these platforms are doing this, but they're enabling something so that you can set a time limit. When you send a message after it's read, it could be seven seconds, it could be a minute, it disappears. So now you actually can't see what photos and texts and who they're talking to, what they're saying.
- [50:00]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [50:00]
Nate Lewis
So that's a conversation that, as a parent, you need to have with your child. Like turn off the disappeared messages. There's no reason why would they even make that on their app? Because people want to hide their conversations. They want to feel that they can have things that no one will ever know. Right. They can say things that no one will ever know.
- [50:19]
Lane (Podcast Host)
I do think they can get some of that information, some of the quote, unquote, disappeared messages with a subpoena and things like that. So it's being stored somewhere.
- [50:29]
Nate Lewis
Yes. I don't want to deter people from not having these conversations, but here's what I would say most anything you do anywhere, anytime on your phone, on the Internet is traceable.
- [50:43]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right. That's the main takeaway, I think.
- [50:45]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. And so if you think that you. There's so many ways that I can see what you're saying, so.
- [50:55]
Lane (Podcast Host)
But you don't want to give too much away either. Of course.
- [50:58]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. So they can pretend to be clever, not only just hide their messages, but hide who they are. But there's really advanced, cool ways to find, to identify individuals online.
- [51:13]
Lane (Podcast Host)
I'd love to hear that. Okay, good. Yeah, because that's gotta be a huge issue is if they don't have access to that information then there's really no way to prosecute the people. But as long as there is advanced tech, that's all I need to know.
- [51:28]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, I would. You know, I can't say too much, but as long as the platforms are willing to cooperate with law enforcement, that's the most important.
- [51:36]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's. Yeah, I actually just encountered that when I was watching a video this morning. It wasn't to do with trafficking. I can't remember what. Oh, it was a mass shooting threat. But the police officer who was doing a press conference said it took four days for Snapchat to get back to them with this user's information. And four days is an awful long time for something like that. And for if someone's going after a child or trying to convince them to do something. That's a very long time.
- [52:01]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, so I don't know that case. So I'm not going to speak about that case and about that instance. But what I do know is I actually know very well about Snapchat and I actually just sat in on a session with one of the executives of Snapchat and the safety. And what I do know is depending. This is why training so important. So some things in Snapchat can take even longer than four days. But if it is an immediate danger, it's usually within four hours. They have a response team that if something is an immediate danger they can go through that channel instead of the normal channel. They can go through a different channel and usually get a response sometimes within an hour. But they say Snapchat claims within four hours.
- [52:50]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's great.
- [52:51]
Nate Lewis
I believe it's four hours. So it may just be that they, law enforcement didn't know about the emergency way to go about it. And so I, I will say that thank goodness. Now I can play both sides with Snapchat because they're also. We've seen them introduce 51 year olds to 11 year olds and lots of them and then as soon as they accept the friend, then the algorithm sends them five more accounts just like it. But that being said, what I will say is that they do have a division that works with law enforcement and they do have that emergency response team also that works with law enforcement, which is much better than some platforms that won't work with law enforcement at all. Not at all.
- [53:30]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Okay. Okay. So yeah, I know Facebook is kind of infamously not great about giving out their users information.
- [53:36]
Nate Lewis
They. Well, so Facebook is A US company and they don't have. They can't. With a warrant, they can't withhold it. One thing I think is important for the audience to know is that I've went and spent time with Xbox, the Microsoft location near Seattle. And they have an incredible team, hundreds of people that are constantly trying to find ways to prevent crimes from happening. Because a lot of crimes happen. I think it's number nine on the top ten list is on. Through video games recruitment and certain things.
- [54:04]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Sure.
- [54:05]
Nate Lewis
And so they are trying to find ways to protect. A lot of cyber tips actually come from video games, to be honest with you.
- [54:11]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Oh.
- [54:11]
Nate Lewis
And they have a full team that's reporting it at Microsoft. They have a team, I believe now this was a couple years ago, but from analyzing different video game systems. This is just my opinion. Xbox is the safest one for children now is 100. Not at all. But it's. They have a massive team trying and they, they feel like they have a moral obligation if they created this technology to now try to find ways that criminals would use this to target kids. And so they have an amazing team. To be honest with you, that's actually.
- [54:47]
Lane (Podcast Host)
A little bit of a relief. I know my kids, there's an Xbox in each room. It's hard to monitor absolutely everything they do ever. And I know some parents won't let them have any online access and things like that. But also it kind of takes away from their experience now because all their friends are online and their real life friends want to play video games with them. So there's such a weird balancing act that you have to do now. I'm awfully glad I don't have young children right now because it's scary out there.
- [55:15]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. Well, you know, I would love to just talk about that a little bit because I think it's important what you just said, for parents, I always use the. Driving a car when they turn 16, they have to, you know, before they're 16, they have to take all these driving courses, classes, practice driving, whatever it is and pass a test and all that and go out there and be safe. What we're teaching our kids is, hey, you're gonna drive someday. We just want you to be very safe about it. And I think that that's what's important about video games and social media is you can just make it disappear. But it's never going to disappear because they're going to go over to their friend's house and they're going to be on it. Right. Or they're going to be 18 someday. They're going to buy their own phone and they're gonna be on it. And so I think, more importantly, one I always go back to, the very first thing is having a relationship with your children. But I think that you have to have these in a trustful place, safe place for them to come and speak to you about. But I think you have to have those conversations about what are some of the boundaries, what are some of the limits, what's okay, what's not okay, and. And they shouldn't just be banned from it. Now there are monitoring apps that you can monitor the activity that they're on. And so you can monitor where they're at, what sites they're going on, you can get alerts and that type of thing. But. But not allowing them to navigate the digital world, I don't think is my opinion isn't the best route because they're going to at some point.
- [56:31]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Sheltering them doesn't help.
- [56:33]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, you gotta just teach them how to drive safe on the digital world.
- [56:38]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Exactly. They're gonna do it at some point. It goes back to what I said before about more education earlier.
- [56:44]
Nate Lewis
Well, and then also just closing your account down so it's not public, because even having a private account, we've done this, and you let someone in, potentially the first message you're going to get is a photo from someone. And you know, at 11, 12, 14, whatever it is, to see that image of a grown man is probably not what you want your kids to see. It's going to peel away part of their innocence.
- [57:09]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [57:09]
Nate Lewis
And so that's, that's why I think having those accounts locked down and it's such a difficult thing because youth today, their popularity now, it's by how many followers you have and friends on social media. Right. And so they're constantly trying to up numbers and let people in.
- [57:24]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Everyone wants to be TikTok famous or whatever. And so they want to be public.
- [57:28]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:29]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That's the scary part. It's hard to navigate as a parent, let alone as a teenager.
- [57:35]
Nate Lewis
Oh, I hope we can learn from our youth someday because they're going to have grown up with it.
- [57:40]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [57:41]
Nate Lewis
And hopefully start pushing it because we're going to see a lot more. We're seeing a lot already, I bet, of these children who have been solicited online, you know, I think it's one in five children will be solicited for sex online before they turn 18. And so they're gonna at some point be like, somewhat in my shoes, like, hey, this Happened to me and I'm. It needs to stop.
- [58:02]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [58:02]
Nate Lewis
Pushing laws and. And educating the two generations above them that have no clue. They don't even have social media, the ones that are setting laws and writing laws and you know, all the individuals at the highest ranking inside of law enforcement too. Like some of those, they don't even know like this is happening. Right. And they're certainly not a teenager online, so how would they. And if they're not spending seven or eight hours a day in this arena, they're not gonna know. So in time, I do believe the younger generations are gonna potentially really be the ones that change this because they lived it.
- [58:37]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yeah, I think they'll have to. Yeah, it really will be something that we'll have to learn a lot more about and fast. I hope, I hope. Because the tech is moving faster than we can really keep up. So we don't know exactly how they're accessing our children, let alone what our children are accessing.
- [58:54]
Nate Lewis
Right, right again, nothing's regulated. So even Hollywood at one point was like, well, we're gonna put ratings on our films. If you're under 18, you can't see a rated R and that rated R online is like G rated.
- [59:06]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Oh yeah.
- [59:07]
Nate Lewis
Oh yeah.
- [59:08]
Lane (Podcast Host)
You can find that on YouTube. Come on.
- [59:09]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, right. And so I, you know, the fact that the Internet, the whole world has no rating system, but Hollywood still does is kind of funny, to be honest with you.
- [59:18]
Lane (Podcast Host)
It really is. Yeah. TV has it, but the Internet doesn't. And who's watching tv? They're watching everything on the Internet.
- [59:24]
Nate Lewis
Yeah, exactly. There's no restrictions. No, none.
- [59:28]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Putting on all the parental controls and things like that. Oh, I did that, sure. When it was still new. And maybe it did help. But there's ways around everything now.
- [59:36]
Nate Lewis
Yep, there is.
- [59:37]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Kids are clever. Unfortunately, they're just not clever in the ways they need to be to avoid these crimes. So, yeah, we have to kind of do that part for them. So I have to say thank you. This is an amazing thing that you're doing. Educating law enforcement is genius. You know, for them to be proactive about it.
- [59:54]
Nate Lewis
Thank you.
- [59:55]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Time for one last sponsor breakfast.
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- [60:32]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
I've got Dan Morgan here on the pod. Say hi Dan.
- [60:35]
Dan Morgan
Hey how's it going today?
- [60:36]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
It's going good man. Tell us who you are and what you do.
- [60:39]
Dan Morgan
I'm Dan Morgan. I'm an attorney and a managing partner at Morgan and Morgan which is America's largest injury law firm.
- [60:46]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
That's pretty awesome. I think I saw a billboard of yours recently that said 20 billion one 20 billion is an insane number.
- [60:54]
Dan Morgan
Yeah, 20 billion recovered. It's actually I think somewhere north probably closer to 22, 23 after this year and each year we get bigger and badder and are army grows so the number will hopefully keep getting bigger and bigger as time goes on.
- [61:07]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Awesome. So how does someone get in contact with Morgan and Morgan? What would I do if I got into an accident?
- [61:12]
Dan Morgan
Probably the easiest way is dialing pound law that's £529 from your cell phone. We are always open. Our call center is always waiting to take your call. 247365 wow.
- [61:22]
Podcast Host Introducing Dan Morgan
Dan Morgan from Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. Thanks for coming by the show.
- [61:26]
Dan Morgan
Thanks for having me. Visit forthepeople.com for an office near you.
- [61:30]
Nate Lewis
Do.
- [61:34]
Lane (Podcast Host)
How can the community help the organization?
- [61:37]
Nate Lewis
Well there's several ways so visit the website the innocent.org if you sign up for the newsletter it's our email. It's on the first page. Scroll to the bottom. That's where we're actually going to be able to help you and communicate to you. We, we unfortunately aren't able to communicate through social media much because our content is restricted against community standards which I don't understand. We're trying to to make communities safer. But sign up for the email newsletter. That's going to be an important way for you to stay up to date. And then secondly there's a community link. Now if you're law enforcement, there's a law enforcement link and you can fill that form out with your government issued ID to get more information on how we can potentially come into your community and provide this training in some of this equipment and software.
- [62:20]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Okay.
- [62:20]
Nate Lewis
And you don't have to do all of it. You can, you know, a la carte like I just want the software, I just need, need some hardware or whatever may be. So law enforcement reach out through there through the community link. Somebody can spearhead an initiative in their community through that link. So fill out the information There pretty soon we're going to have some education partners that you'll be able to get educated and then you can host some events or whatever. We can build you a fundraising page to raise funds. We're doing it currently, raising funds for your community. And there's a disclaimer in there. Like, most of the time I don't think I have ever seen it, but I'm sure it's possible that some department will be like, yeah, we don't need free stuff.
- [63:01]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Thank you.
- [63:02]
Nate Lewis
But. So there's a disclaimer in there, but for the most part, you, potentially, you can go and raise the funds for your community.
- [63:08]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Okay.
- [63:08]
Nate Lewis
And. And get this training or some of the equipment right into your community. So click on the community link and fill that out. And then lastly, you know, we're 100% funded by the people. That's why I started this, because I wanted people to have an avenue to make real impact, real change. And it's 100% here in the United States. And so if you could go on and click the blue button, donate and become, we call, a protector, as little as $10 a month, you could do more, but as little as $10 a month. The more people we have $10 a month, which isn't a ton, but it does make a difference. You're like, well, what does $10 really make a difference? It doesn't if you don't do it, but if everybody listening does at least $10 a month, together we actually can make real impact. So those are a few ways where you can help this mission focus right here in the United States. And we're going to continue doing this with the help of the people because, you know, the government, hopefully soon we'll start funding some of this, but we're giving grants for specific crimes and that's child sex crimes. And we can't do it without the people.
- [64:11]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Now, one last question then. I was wondering, what would you say parents could say to their children to teach them what to watch for or how we can protect them better?
- [64:22]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. Wow. I know it's hard. I think that it comes down to you can't trust everyone online. And before with stranger danger, you know, walking home from school, there's still an element somewhat of stranger danger, but it's not just danger. It's just being aware. And just because I know how these conversations start. And the grooming process includes manipulation.
- [64:48]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yes.
- [64:48]
Nate Lewis
So it goes back to what we're saying is they're going to tell you the things I've seen it so many Times even with boys. And boys are targeted because they think these girls are real and they emotionally get attached. And I think that, you know, finding stories, listening to us, and hey, you know what, maybe younger generation follow us on social media because I'm sharing certain things that are real and you know, it's going to be up to the child to believe him because they want to tend to think that, oh, that's not real, but it is real. And so I'd say one, try to get the kids accounts locked up, meaning they're private and not public, because that's one layer of protection, honestly. And just be careful on who you allow into your circle, like who's following you. Go in and check all the people that are following your children and have your children look at it and just go in and start looking at them and say, like, who is this person?
- [65:39]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [65:39]
Nate Lewis
And then, you know, one of the things that we recognize pretty quickly, significantly, is how many followers do they have? And if they have like three or eight, but they're following 2,120, that might be a red flag. And you can kind of see who they're following. Look at the demographics. Why would they be following young individuals?
- [65:58]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right, right.
- [65:59]
Nate Lewis
And so, you know, the really, the truthful thing I always go to is you gotta have a real relationship with your children and it has to be a safe place for them that they're not going to get in trouble. Even if something, even if they ended up going like, hey, I did something really stupid, mom or dad or whatever. Yeah, I did something really stupid and I know I shouldn't have, but I did and this is what happened. You need to be just like law enforcement. Listen to them for a minute. Yeah. Listen and give them that respect. And here's the other thing I will say is, dads, I don't care if you're married or divorced, Men have to have an active role in their daughter's lives.
- [66:38]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yes.
- [66:39]
Nate Lewis
And this was from an interview with one of these predators, said, how did you pick your targets? One, they went for vulnerable children. You know, maybe they're in a single home, they're posting about boys that they don't like and this and that, and so they know that they're vulnerable. But the number one thing that one of these individuals said was they look at the dad, and if the dad appears to be a threat, it was going to be a hard target. So they found an easier one. You know, as the male figure, I think first and foremost, your young daughter is kind of like your wife. Right. And I mean this in a good way. They need the love and attention that they, you know, we all do as humans. And so we have to, as dads, have a really important role in our son's lives, but we have an important role in our daughter's lives, too. And so being there, setting the example of what to look for and giving them really the attention that they are. You know, we're humans. We want that. We want connection, we want respect, we want people to listen, we want to feel heard, all those things.
- [67:43]
Lane (Podcast Host)
And as their hormones go crazy, they, you know, have certain other things that they're interested in learning about. And it's better that they learn it from you as a parent than some random guy online, you know?
- [67:54]
Nate Lewis
Absolutely. And I'm going to answer your question even more specific now. And this is what I think is probably one of them to me, in my family of young kids, the most important. And it is difficult. And just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And even at a young age, I have to have conversations that my parents didn't have to me with me ever, you know, and that is that, hey, these are your private parts. No one touches them. And you don't touch other people's. And if someone ever does, you need to draw much attention to you into that situation as possible. And then you need to tell an adult because it is not right, because they're going to try to tell them, hey, this is normal, it's okay. Don't deny these feelings. And so it is not acceptable. But they need to be told that from a young age, because God forbid, and this happened to me, their first introduction to sexual activity is from somebody they don't know. And they don't know that it's wrong because they're being told that it's right.
- [68:54]
Lane (Podcast Host)
And I would say the same thing for taking pictures of the same areas and sending them to someone online, whether they've told you that it's okay or not, or they've begun the exchange by sending you pictures of themselves. That's one way that they do get exploited. I know. And some people will be out there grooming your daughter, asking her for pictures of herself, and then when she sends them, using it to blackmail her.
- [69:15]
Nate Lewis
Exactly. And this is where I think the conversation would kind of shift to boys now, because over 81% of victims are female. Boys are targeted by a different demographic. I won't get into that. But the boys, I think is important. Mom and dad, especially dad, make sure your son doesn't become a predator. What does that mean?
- [69:35]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yes. Thank you.
- [69:36]
Nate Lewis
Make sure that they're not asking girls to send them photos. That's illegal.
- [69:41]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right. Even if they're underage.
- [69:43]
Nate Lewis
We arrest people for this. And so if you. If you're teaching your kids not to shoplift, you better be teaching them not to ask for photos. And they certainly shouldn't be sending photos. So that's a conversation you need to have with your son. So we can focus on the victims, usually the females who are having this done to them or being recruited. But we also need to focus on how are we raising our boys.
- [70:09]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Yes.
- [70:09]
Nate Lewis
To respect these girls. And even though there's a desire and they've heard about it, they've seen about their friends, have probably shown them pictures of the girls, they've gotten to send photos and this and that, don't let your boy become one of those who victimizes a young girl.
- [70:24]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Thank you so much for saying that. I'm very glad you brought that up, because, yes, focusing on the victims, you have to protect yourself, but at the same time, we should be teaching our boys how not to be a predator or an abuser.
- [70:36]
Nate Lewis
Absolutely.
- [70:37]
Lane (Podcast Host)
So the demographic you said that goes after boys, what would you say that the difference is there?
- [70:42]
Nate Lewis
In my experience, I've seen two different realms. One, it's actually a male pretending to be a girl to send photos and then extortion. So they bribe them because they've become friends with some of their friends or family members, and then they bribe them and say, hey, I'm actually not a girl, and I have all these photos and I'm gonna start sending them. And they actually do send them sometimes. And sometimes that child. And I just heard of a recent one. I've never heard of it this fast, but within three or four hours of that occurring, he committed suicide. This young boy.
- [71:10]
Lane (Podcast Host)
That is awful. And I have heard those two. And it's just heartbreaking because you don't have time to react as a parent if you don't know about it.
- [71:18]
Nate Lewis
Yep. Yep. And then the other demographic, sometimes it's just straight up, they're a male, and then sometimes they can pose as females and just try to get photos from them as well. And so just. Just be careful of that out there. Young boys as well, because they can be groomed and manipulated to build trust within that community as well.
- [71:38]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Watch out for anyone older looking to form a relationship with you. Why are they telling you, oh, you're so mature for your age, things like that. Teaching kids what grooming is is super Important, I think.
- [71:49]
Nate Lewis
Yeah. And watch out for this one. This is how they all go after you children. Oh, your parents just don't understand.
- [71:55]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Right, right.
- [71:55]
Nate Lewis
So they're gaining their trust because they're becoming on their side of the team because what they're trying to do is separate you from your parents. And so they'll say certain things like that, or they'll say like, oh, she just doesn't get you. Your mom doesn't understand. They'll always tell you you're beautiful no matter what.
- [72:11]
Lane (Podcast Host)
You know, that's how they come in a lot of the times into probably the Instagram photos and things like that is quick. Send a dm.
- [72:18]
Nate Lewis
Yeah.
- [72:19]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to me about all of this information that, you know, it's kind of in the periphery, but a lot of people don't want to think about it, talk about it as something real and it is happening and it can happen to anyone and it can happen to your own children. So it's something that we should know more about and definitely law enforcement should know a lot about.
- [72:39]
Nate Lewis
Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I appreciate you using a platform to educate and raise awareness to the people of the realities of these crimes that are occurring because so many people aren't using their platforms for this. So thank you for that.
- [72:56]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Thank you very much. It can be a thankless job in a lot of ways, but I feel so strongly that people need to know these things or it's just going to keep happening, just exactly what you're teaching people. And it's so important. So thank you again.
- [73:08]
Nate Lewis
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- [73:14]
Lane (Podcast Host)
Thank you so much to Nate for taking his time to talk to me about the innocent and the amazing work the organization does to help protect kids across America. I'll include the links to the Innocence website and socials in the show notes. Give them a like and a follow and if you can afford to support them, please do. That's it for this episode. Join me next time for another story. If you like the show, please follow or subscribe to Suffer the Little Children on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Spreaker, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast listening app. And please leave me a five star rating and a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. Visit the website at sufferthelittlechildrenpod.com you can support the show by visiting patreon.com stlcpod where you can become a patron for rewards ranging from a shout out by name on the show to exclusive gifts. You can also support the show at ko-fi.com stlcpod Follow the podcast on Facebook and Instagram at Suffer the Little Children pod and on TikTok tlcpod. View photos Related to today's episode on Facebook. This podcast is researched, written, hosted, edited and produced by Lane Intro Theme music is by Dream Note Music and all music for the show is licensed from audiojungle.net for more information about preventing or reporting Child Abuse, visit childhelp.org or call your area's Child Abuse hotline. And remember, if you see something, say something.
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