ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — The St. Petersburg Police Department is warning people to be cautious when they meet up with people they’ve met on dating apps.
Although they say the number of reported rapes in St. Petersburg has gone down slightly from 2017 to 2018, they have noticed a new trend.
“Not only are we getting more people coming forward, and reporting rapes and crimes, which is good, we’re seeing a trend," said Yolanda Fernandez, a St. Petersburg Police Department representative. "Which is that a lot of people are using apps to date where they communicate with the app and feel like they get to know somebody, and they’re really meeting a perfect stranger. And they end up finding themselves in uncomfortable situations.”
When asked if they knew the exact number of rapes or sexual assaults tied to dating apps in St. Petersburg, Fernandez said she did not know.
“That’s something that we really haven’t been able to quantify, we don’t really have that way to count them. We count them by the type of crime it is. It’s something that our detectives have seen as a common thread, through the reports, and it’s something they hadn’t seen before,” she explained.
Fernandez says there are a few ways to stay safe if you opt to use a dating app. She suggests you don’t tell the date where you live, have someone call you during the date to check up on you, and meet in a public place. She also suggests not drinking too much alcohol.
Fernandez says detectives started to notice this happening recently.
“They really started noticing it in the last couple of years, especially in the last year," she said. "And this is something we discussed within the department, that this is coming up more often, and there was nothing else in common between these cases. And they were beginning to see that, and that was new, because many of the detectives had been working this type of crime for a long time and hadn’t seen that come up before."
A Tinder spokesperson sent this statement to 10 News regarding the trend:
“The safety of our users is a top priority for us at Tinder. We have a zero-tolerance policy for users who harass or disrespect other members of our community. Any reports of behavior that is contrary to our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines are taken very seriously and have a team dedicated to investigating each report. Additionally, if a member has been reported for committing a crime, they will be removed from our platform.
We utilize a network of industry-leading automated and manual moderation and review tools, systems and processes - and spend millions of dollars annually - to prevent, monitor and remove bad actors from our app. These tools include, automatic scans of profiles for red-flag language and images, manual reviews of suspicious profiles, activity, and user generated reports, as well as blocking email addresses, phone numbers and other identifiers.
Whether they meeting someone offline or online, we also encourage our users to pay attention to our safety recommendations available online and through the app: https://www.gotinder.com/safety.”
The Tinder spokesperson did not respond to questions of whether Tinder requires background checks for users.
The 24-hour Rape Crisis Hotline in St. Petersburg is 727-530-7273.
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