September 2023: Join The ConVersation
Let the Conversation begin
The Founder’s Reflection
Greetings this September 11, with all the memories this day conjures up. I pray you find peace and the heart to remember the high cost of hate and the willingness to use freedom to take the lives of others. We are living in an age in which freedom is grossly misunderstood and so, misused. Whether flying a plane full of passengers heading home, to visit families, go to work, return to school, condemning them to a terrifying death, or seeking to profit from the terror of a child through sextortion, with heartless disregard for life, we all suffer the loss. I recently exchanged messages with South Carolina state representative Brandon Guffey about his son Gavin and the late-night suicide that shattered his family. Around midnight his son was contacted by a seemingly beautiful girl wanting to party. The good times lasted minutes, replaced by demands for cash and a frightening ultimatum. When 17-year-old Gavin was unable to produce the dollars required, pressure swelled into grief and despair until this boy demonstrated he owned his mistake with bullet. The perpetrator(s) used a vanish mode feature making their messages disappear and untraceable to law enforcement. The family has been left with a barrage of – “if only’s” that echo throughout the days and into the nights.
As parents, please make the effort to be aware of such threats to your children and be willing to keep devices connected to the internet out of children’s bedrooms. I often hear “I trust my son or daughter.” The desire to be the parent who trusts the children to be immune to the pandemic and manipulative skill of practiced adults who use their freedom to exploit others, is misplaced. Learn from Rep. Guffey and the parents of 11 other children who took their lives in one year after being targeted to compromise their good sense by sending explicit photos to phantoms in disguise on the web. It is our responsibility to be trustworthy and protectors.
Thank you for taking fatherhood, families and communities seriously.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/rep-lost-son-after-sextortion-it-happens-so-quickly/
Patrick Erlandson, Founder: Father-Con, and See it. End it. Film & Arts Festival