Internet Crime Expert to Romeoville Students: Help Us Find the Bad Guys

Rich Wistocki, an investigator for the Will County State’s Attorney’s High Tech Crimes Unit, speaks with 7th graders at A. Vito Martinez Middle School Tuesday. Credit: Valley View School District.

An investigator for the Will County State’s Attorney’s High Tech Crimes Unit asked A. Vito Martinez Middle School 7th gradersTuesday to help him fight cyber criminals.

“This is really important because if you do this, we can catch the bad guys,” Naperville Police Detective Rich Wistocki told students.

Wistocki spent nearly two hours talking to students about internet predators, sexting, cyberbullying, swatting, cyber stalking and apps that aren’t what they appear to be.

“I never, ever want you guys to feel hopeless, to feel like it’s only happening to you, you can’t make it stop, and no one is there to help you” he said. “If you’re suffering emotional distress, that is a crime and we can find out who it is and make it stop. Conversely, if you are doing something like that, you’re going to get caught.”

Wistocki told 7th graders the best way to stop an internet crime is to immediately take “screen captures” of everything. Make every effort to find the user ID of the person you think is committing the crime. Make a detailed written report of what happened and e-mail the screen captures and report to yourself. Then put it on a flash drive. And call local police.

“Never allow your parents to type as you and try to trick the guy because that’s illegal,” he said. “And don’t let your parents get on your device and threaten to call the police because the bad guy will just go away and we won’t find him.”

Wistocki also gave several general tips to the students including turning off location services on the cameras of cell phones and making sure different internet accounts have different passwords.

The internet crime expert will be the featured speaker at a 7 p.m. April 16 VVSD Community Forum at Brooks Middle School.