Dec 11, 2020 / 10:40 PM EST
FRANKLIN, Ind. (WISH) Johnson County officials say multiple people were arrested in a child solicitation investigation.
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office announced the charges at a Friday morning press conference.
The operation started on Dec. 8.
Investigators with the sheriff’s office say detectives created a fake profile of an underage girl was created on a “sex-oriented website,” according to Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess.
“It turns your stomach. I don’t care who you are. How tough. This is unacceptable. We don’t want it anywhere. We’ve got to protect our children,” Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess explained.
PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN: 10 captured in child solicitation operation
12/11/20 8:20 PM
Over the course of three days, nine men came to Johnson County intent on meeting a teenager for sex.
They drove some for more than an hour to undisclosed locations in Greenwood to meet up with undercover detectives posed as an underage girl. It was part of a first-of-its-kind sting operation in the county, dubbed Operation Firewall, a partnership of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office and Covenant Rescue Group, an Alabama-based nonprofit that’s fighting human trafficking across the country and working with law enforcement agencies on operations such as this.
‘You Are Believed’: Groups collaborate on mural to comfort traumatized children
12/10/20 7:38 PM
The nightmarish experience of abuse and neglect is something no child should ever have to go through.
But when they do, for there to be justice for those crimes, prosecutors and advocates need them to relive their pain, to testify on the record about what they endured. Doing so takes great courage and bravery.
And any way to ease that burden, even a little bit, is worth it.
Four local agencies teamed up to try and do just that. ASSIST Indiana, the Creative Council of Franklin, Leadership Johnson County and the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office collaborated on a colorful mural outside of the prosecutor’s Child Advocacy Center in Franklin.