Cyber Crimes Task Force hampered by funding cuts

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- Authorities say cuts in funding for the Southeast Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force are crippling the work it can do investigating online predators of Missouri children.

The task force, based at the Poplar Bluff Police Department, was formed in 2007 as a means to fight online criminals who often seek to entice children and deal in child pornography.

Given the current funding trend, police officials say the unit may be forced to disband, leaving not only the department, but also other agencies in its 13-county service area, in a lurch.

Since its inception, the unit's funding has been reduced substantially.

In its early years, the task force received in excess of $100,000 annually in state and federal funding. Three years ago it received $10,000.

Expecting to receive $5,000 this year, police officials were notified last week that amount had been cut by half.

The $5,000 "didn't cover the manpower that it takes to do all the reporting [of statistics], so $2,500 is a slap in the face," said deputy police chief Jeff Rolland.

The task force, said Capt. David Sutton, was organized with the help of then-Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children commander Lt. Joe Laramie of the Glendale Police Department.

"At that time, we got quite a bit of financial support from Missouri ICAC [which] is funded by grants through the federal ... Department of Justice," Sutton said.

After Laramie's retirement in 2010, control of ICAC was transferred to Lt. Chris Mateja of the St. Charles County Police Department, Sutton said.

The change "was not good for us," Sutton said. "The funding was drastically cut. Fortunately, we were able to get funding through the Missouri Department of Public Safety through a state grant."

In June, Sutton said, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed $1.5 million in funding for the Missouri State Cyber Crimes Grant, which was used for the regional task forces across the state.

Now, the funding has been "pulled back into the major cities, leaving the rural communities at risk," Rolland said. "What's just insane about this is the people in the large metropolitan areas that are taking all the funding push these investigations down to us [because] they are in our geographical boundaries."

ICAC investigators don't come to Southeast Missouri to work the cases, he said.

"They leave that to us, and they've cut our funding," he said. "So, the mindset is: We're not going to fund you, but we expect you to keep doing the same things you've been doing."

Before having the regional task forces, devices had been sent off to federal investigators in St. Louis for forensic examinations.

"The system was broke," Rolland said. "The federal system was overloaded, and we fixed the system.

"Now, politics have crept into it again, and it's broke, and who pays the price? The taxpayers. And how they pay that price is their children [possibly becoming] a victim of a heinous crime while politicians play games with money that isn't theirs," he said.

The task force, Sutton said, gets dozens of reports every year from the National Center for Missing and Exploited children to investigate, as well as referrals from ICAC.