Child pornography discovered at a popular South Sound park usually crowded with kids has Puyallup police now searching for the owner of the content and are currently stepping up patrols.
The pornography was found inside a tube slide at Bradley Lake Park, so any child who went down the slide would see it. Turns out anyone tall enough could see it, too.
It is nothing anyone here expected to see, not at this busy park filled with parents and children at play.
“It was just terrifying,” said 16-year-old Brandon, who asked us not to use his last name.
He was watching his 4-year-old niece play at Bradley Lake Park on Friday afternoon. He went down the slide, and while leaned back, saw a sheet filled with a collage of child pornography.
“[I] grabbed it,” said Brandon. “Crumpled it up. Handed it to my sister and said don’t look at it until we got to the car.”
He and his sister say it was too graphic even to photograph.
“I really didn’t know what it was,” said Ashley, Brandon’s sister. “And so I looked and was absolutely disgusted by what I had seen and, honestly, forever scarred. And I feel bad for those children. Nobody should have to go through that.”
They took what they found to Puyallup police. Capt. Ryan Portmann said the images raise several troubling questions.
“Is this new child pornography?” he asked. “Is it old child pornography? And then try to identify who possessed and certainly who placed it there in the slide.”
Portmann says police will also step up patrols in the area.
Ashley says she wants something more.
“I think it’s really scary,” she said. “And it’s really important for possibly cameras at the park.”
All of it has parents in the area on alert.
“I hope they get some kind of lead because that should never happen again,” said Jace Hall, a parent from Spanaway. “Like, no kid should ever be exposed to anything like that.”
Puyallup police say they have mobile cameras in their parks, so they can put them anywhere.
They say they really want to figure out if the images are new. That might indicate there are new victims who need to be rescued.
Anyone who knows anything is asked to call Puyallup police.