Police: Incident with Sex Offender and Teen Highlights Need for Phone Safety

Burlington Police Chief Michal Kent and Officer Matthew Creamer came to last night's Board of Selectmen meeting to warn parents to be cautious of power of smart phones and how children using them might become susceptible to real-life threats.

Creamer said the inspiration for the warning came from an incident in September, 2010, when a level-3 registered sex offender was able to trick a teenager into providing him with her phone number after an encounter at Simonds Park. Creamer explained that Keith Ericson, 49, of Woburn, a registered sex offender, approached a 16-year-old female at the park pretending to be searching for his phone.

The young woman agreed to help and dialed the man's number with the idea they would locate the phone by its ring. However, there was no phone lost in the park and the two separated. In the days ahead Ericson sent text messages, most sexual in nature, to the teenager.

"The text messages became quite aggressive," Creamer said.

The young woman contacted police who began an investigation. Creamer said he replied to the messages posing as the minor and was able to get the name associated with the man's phone. Police obtained a warrant and on Nov. 10, 2010, according to a log on Woburn Patch, the Woburn Police Department made an arrest in Woburn. Creamer reported at the meeting that last month Ericson was found guilty of "propositioning a child for sex" and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years by a Woburn Superior Court judge.

Both Creamer and Chief Kent said this incident should raise parent's awareness of the risks involved with providing a child with a cell phone. They said parents have learned in the past decade to be cautious of children on the internet, and of the need to protect and educate their children against risks while on the computer, but that caution and education must extend to cell phones. While this incident could have happened to anyone with a regular phone, the access children have to social network sites, where they often post a lot of personal information, and the internet at large right on their smart phones means parents need to treat them like computers.

"A lot of parents overlook a known danger," Creamer said. "They know the risks of the internet, but when you have a smart phone in your pocket it's like carrying a laptop. In the wrong hands that technology can be used for dangerous uses, some people can track individuals and sites like Facebook contain so much information."

Kent suggested parents visit the web site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to both get a sense of the current risks and to find information on teaching children to be smart when using the internet and cell phones.

"This was a particularly disturbing report of what can happen even in a safe community like Burlington," he said. "Parents need to be informed."