Five Arrested In Amarillo After Online Sting Operation
New year, same sting operations in Amarillo, TX. No, I'm not saying this in a bad way, the sting operations here have been wildly successful for various different things, and we have our first one for this particular offense for 2024.
A couple of weeks ago, we heard about a raid on illegal gambling operations, and in 2023, one sting for illegal gambling took down dozens of different places in the city.
On Friday, Amarillo Police arrested five different men on charges of online solicitation of a minor.
Saul Reyes, 24, Bryson Munselle, 27, Eric J Rodriguez, 19, Demarcus St Julian, 37 and Andrew Trejo, 20 were all arrested after police put together a sting operation that involved the suspects taking it as far as trying to meet up with a minor.
It started with APD helping create online profiles of underage people. Once created, they were placed on different social media sites. Once those were built, APD went to work. According to the news release from APD, "Through a series of online chats, suspects were told to meet the 'underage' officers at a residence for the purpose of sex. There were many chats taking place at various times throughout the sting."
Once a suspect showed up to meet the underage person, they were arrested on site and not given an opportunity to leave. The five suspects arrested were charged with 2nd degree felony of online solicitation of a minor.
This isn't the first time APD has run these types of operations, and it certainly won't be the last. It is one of APD's priorities to keep predators off the streets and keep our children safe. One thing you can do to help is monitor your children's online presence and activity, as well as their text messages.
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