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Predators now using Xbox to lure victims...

A 13-year-old Virginia girl is back home after being lured away by a man she'd been chatting with for at least six months through a Microsoft Xbox 360 game, police said. ABC News story here

Andrew Holloway, 21, who allegedly traveled to Evington, Virginia from his home in Rhode Island, has been charged with a sex crime in connection with the case, according to police.

The teen was the third child in recent weeks to have left home to meet adults they came in contact with through an Xbox game. The others were a 16-year-old girl from Detroit and a 12-year-old boy from Ohio.

The 13-year-old Virginia girl first met Holloway through the game system's chat capabilities and then continued the relationship on the Internet after her Xbox broke, police said.

Bedford County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ricky Gardner said the girl was reported missing Tuesday evening by her father. An hour prior to his call, Gardner said, his office had received a tip from a neighbor about two suspicious people walking along the road near her home, later determined to be the teen and Holloway.

Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy and security lawyer and founder of WiredSafety.org, said because children, especially those as young as 13, have little sense of danger in these situations it is up to the parents to understand and monitor their gaming use.

"Parents absolutely have to understand about interactive game devices and what they do before they put them into kids' hands," she told ABCNews.com.

All current gaming systems from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have Internet connectability.

"The good thing is, if you're on Xbox, we've got Microsoft behind it," Aftab said.

The Xbox is not only the most popular gaming system of the big three, which also includes the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo Wii, but Microsoft has the most advanced security checks and the most comprehensive guide to parental controls.

Though Microsoft requires a credit card payment of about $50 per year to connect with other players via the Internet, parents often hand over the plastic without really understanding what their kids are using it for, Aftab said.

And there are effective controls that still allow the child to play the game with others. Not only can parents block their kids from the chat feature on their Xbox, they can set controls to lock down the machine after a certain amount of time played or at certain hours of the day.

But while children need to be made aware of the dangers lurking behind their controllers, they can't be blamed for running off with adult predators, Aftab said. The very idea of the laws that protect children from statutory rape or Internet solicitation means they aren't fully capable of making responsible decisions at that age.

"Kids are reckless. Kids are careless. Kids are clueless," Aftab said. "Kids are needy. Kids are vulnerable."

Police in Parma, Ohio, say they arrested a 19-year-old man on rape charges in connection with an assault on a 12-year-old boy he met through Xbox. Detective Marty Compton said the boy had been communicating with Codey Hawks for about a year and the boy's father had even joined in on some games with the man.

On January 15, Hawks took a Greyhound bus from his home in Michigan and was accepted into the boy's house by his parents. But after Hawks allegedly made some comments that made the boy's parents suspect the two were having a sexual relationship they pulled him out of school and he "basically confirmed their suspicions," Compton said.

Just last week, a 16-year-old Michigan girl was reunited with her parents after running away to Puerto Rico apparently with a man she met online. ABC News story here

Chicago TV station investigates abuse in public schools...

An exclusive CBS 2 investigation discovered Treveon Martin, 10, is one of at least 818 Chicago Public School students, since 2003, to allege being battered by a teacher or an aide, coach, security guard, or even a principal. In most of those cases-568 of them-Chicago Public School investigators determined the children were telling the truth. cbs2 Chicago news story here

"I'm thinking that I don't really feel safe," Martin said.

The 2 Investigators found reports of students beaten with broomsticks, whipped with belts, yard sticks, struck with staplers, choked, stomped on and pushed down stairs. One substitute teacher even fractured a student's neck.

But even more alarming, in the vast majority of cases, teachers found guilty were only given a slap on the wrist.

CBS 2 informed former Chicago Public School CEO Arne Duncan of our investigative findings shortly before he was promoted to U.S. Secretary of Education.

"If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple," Duncan said. Before heading to Washington, he vowed to take action. "Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student-they're going to be gone," Duncan said.

But that's not what happened under Duncan's watch. Of the 568 verified cases, only 24 led to termination. Records show one teacher who "battered students for several years" was simply given a "warning" by the Board of Education.

And another student was given "100 licks with a belt." The abuse was substantiated, but the records show the teacher was not terminated.

There is a state law that bans corporal punishment. But as our 2 Investigators first exposed in September-students are being hit by coaches too. Paddles were confiscated, and we exposed this gym security tape at Simeon Career Academy showing a coach paddling volleyball players reportedly for missing serves.

Martin says the teacher injured him after he got into a scuffle with a classmate over an eraser. "My back really hurted, and then at the end of the day, I had to go the hospital," Martin said.

His mother, Courtney Smith, says he was taken by ambulance and treated for a contusion on his back. It is children around his age who appear to be most at risk. The 2 Investigators found the students with the most complaints are in Kindergarten through 8th grade.

"He doesn't have very much faith in anyone at his school," Smith said. "He hurt my feelings," Martin said.

So why did it take over two months to look into Martin's case? School officials say it's because they have many cases to investigate. But just a few hours ago, an investigator determined the allegations against the teacher were unfounded. We are also told only two students were interviewed.

Incoming Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman is troubled by all these cases, including the case of Treveon Martin and promises to further review them, and that includes the process by which they are examined and investigated.

In other news...

Reyna Valentino, 40, a mother of five, faces life in prison on allegations that she burned her 4-year-old daughter in an oven, used a hot nail or screwdriver to singe her eyelids and beat her 5-year-old daughter's leg with a pry bar. Detroit News story here Hamtramck, Michigan cops stumbled onto graphic allegations of burnings, beatings and torture after the girls’ mother phoned police January 23 and confessed to "harming her children," Detective Ben Bielecki said. She was arraigned on felony charges of first-degree child abuse and torture in 31st District Court. The 4-year-old gave her account to investigators. "She said, 'Her heart is hurt and broke because momma doesn't love me anymore,'" Bielecki read from the report. "'Mom cooks me like a turkey in the oven. I felt fire. It burned my back,'" he read. "'She hurts me with a screwdriver all the time.'" Police said Valentino's husband, Randy, wasn't home and there's no evidence that he abused their children. After the incident, Valentino called police about 3 p.m. to come get her. "She said she is harming her family," Bielecki said. The couple has three other children, two boys believed to be 7 and 8 years old and an infant who is about 8 months, Bielecki said.

An alarming trend called "sexting" has the Memphis City Schools system launching a new task force to deal with it. First Coast News story here With cell phone use so prevalent in schools, a new trend is emerging called "sexting"-sending naked or sexually suggestive text messages. Psychologist Rebecca Rutledge, who counsels juvenile court teens, says it's mostly happening in the suburbs. "It's increasing very much with young females," she said. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found 20% of teens across the country have sent nude texts, and most of those teens live in the suburbs. 39% of teens have sent sexually suggestive messages. The 17-page survey also found that boys pressure girls into sexting, but both males and females do it to get the attention of the opposite sex. What teens may not realize is that nearly half of those sexy texts are being shared with others. MSNBC News video story here For more information see vol7_iss9 and eGuide/vol1_iss44.

Bullied and scared, a teenage girl was kept as a sex slave in Anchorage off and on for four years at the hands of a family friend who had "groomed" her into submission, according to police investigators and documents filed in court this week. Anchorage Daily News story here Just days after the girl turned 15, Dana Thompson put her on birth control pills, then repeatedly raped her using chains and dog collars while filming the acts, according to the dozens of charges filed against him. "Some of the things I had to look up on the Internet when I interviewed her because I didn't know what they meant," said Detective Kim Trujillo of the Anchorage Police Department's crimes against children unit and investigator on the case. Thompson called the girl his "little slave" until late in the spring of 2008, when the girl left the state and realized that what was going on wasn't normal and turned him in, according to the court documents. Thompson, 46, was indicted on 64 felony counts of sexual abuse of a minor, unlawful exploitation of a minor-related to producing child pornography-and possessing child porn. For more information on grooming, see eGuide.org/vol1_iss44.

Authorities in Northern California say they have solved a two-decade-old kidnapping and have located the two children, reports said. Their grandfather was in custody. MSNBC News story here Police in San Jose, California say Christie and Bobby Baskin, who are both now in their 20s, were found Monday with their grandfather, Marvin Maple, NBC affiliate KCRA-Sacramento reported. Maple and his wife, who died two years ago, disappeared with Christie and Bobby after a nasty custody battle. They claimed the children had been sexually abused by their parents. CBS News story here The Baskin children are now 27 and 28, and still living in San Jose.

The family of a 10-year-old boy who died after being hanged on a bathroom hook at his school Tuesday is unsatisfied with the medical examiner's suicide ruling and believes the boy may have been the victim of bullies. ABC News story here Aquan Lewis, an Illinois fifth-grader who loved football and basketball, was found dead on the bathroom floor by a school janitor at Oakton Elementary School in Evanston, Illinois. The janitor, Elliott Lieteau, told The Associated Press that others had pulled the boy off the hook and attempted to perform CPR. Lallie Marshall, Aquan's great-grandmother, told ABCNews.com that the family believes he was hoisted onto the hook by a group of boys. In the days after Aquan's death, she said, they have heard he might have been the target of school bullies. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Aquan had told a teacher he planned to kill himself, and the teacher may also have shared the boy's comments with another staff member. One of the sources, according to the newspaper, charged that school personnel failed to take the threat seriously. According to a law enforcement report, Aquan had been scolded by school staff earlier Tuesday. Neglect allegations have been lodged against the school with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in connection with the death, DCFS spokesman Jimmie Whitelow confirmed.

When Erica Olivares ran away from her Wyoming home at age 16, the penalty was not a stern lecture-it was a month in Laramie County jail. Soon, under the tutelage of adult criminals, she was addicted to drugs. AP News story here "Methamphetamine, I'd never even heard about that. And I heard about that in there," said Olivares, now 26. Legally, she should never have been in position to learn such harsh lessons. Runaways are not supposed to be put in jail, let alone meet adult lawbreakers on the inside, under a 34-year-old federal law called the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Yet year after year, some states disregard key parts of the law with little consequence, an Associated Press examination has found. Those states included Wyoming, Mississippi, South Carolina and Washington in 2006, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. The federal law provides funds for compliance, money that can be withheld for failure to comply, just as millions in federal highway funds can be lost by states not setting a drinking age of 21. But the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act provides far less grant money-from $600,000 to about $7.5 million annually per state. This is less than the cost of building juvenile lockups and hiring guards trained to work with juveniles. States feel less public pressure to comply, juvenile advocates say.

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