| Updated: 6/25/2012 9:21 am |
Published: 6/24/2012 10:49 pm
|
A Facebook sting led Tulsa undercover officers to arrest 23-year-old Henry Allen Ross.
Ross had been inappropriately communicating with a 12-year-old girl through Facebook. Ross had messaged over the last couple months but the girl did not respond.
On Saturday she started to write back. "Henry Ross was asking questions about her sexual experience, things she likes to do, would she like to do this, would she be willing to let him do this,"said Tulsa police detective Greg Smith.
The girl lied to Ross about her age. She told him she was 14. She was at her grandmother’s house in the living room area using the computer while the Facebook conversation was happening.
Her uncle walked into the room and the girl told him she felt uncomfortable answering Ross’s questions. Her uncle took her seat and pretended to be his niece talking to Ross. Meantime, the uncle had the grandmother call the police. The sting began.
Ross asked the little girl (the uncle) is she would come over to his place. The uncle responded with a plan from the police. He asked Ross to meet him (who Ross still thought was the girl) at a pay phone at 36th and Harvard. He agreed and undercover officers headed that way.
Ross was cuffed and booked into jail on three felony counts: lewd proposal to a minor under 16-years-old, attempted rape, and using a computer to commit a criminal act.
Monica Barbour, a mother living in the same area where Ross was arrested, has three children. She does not let them go onto the internet without her being in the room, especially after hearing about Henry Ross’s arrest.
“Good for her for knowing it wasn't appropriate and having the sense to stop, and to go find an adult she could trust,” said Barbour. “Kudos to the adult for being like ‘let's get this guy.’”
She recently started thinking maybe she was being too tough with her internet house rules. “This one (looking at her ten-year-old Margaret in the face) she has a pretty strict rule about I have to see it before it goes out, Right?” she asked her daughter. “Right!” said Margaret.
Now she knows she can never be tough enough when it comes to the internet.
“I almost feel like we have to be hawks for them because they are innocent and it's our job to protect them,” said Barbour. “So when they give me grief about 'Mom do you have to look over my children and see what I am doing?’ Yes I do! And you’ll thank me one day.”
Henry Allen Ross’s bond is set at $76,000.
