David Keith’s drive to protect children was first inspired by a mini-series he saw as a kid.
It was "Sybil" with Sally Field.
“In that movie they had pretty graphic scenes of her being tortured in the kitchen and it truly scared me for life. It was the impenitent rage that I could barely control,” said the veteran actor.
In the middle of a successful acting career that saw credits including "An Officer and a Gentleman," "The Lords of Discipline," and "U-571,' Keith starting working with the National Association to Protect Children.
He used his star power to successfully lobby for stricter child abuse laws in his home state of Tennessee and then on Capitol Hill.
“If there are people out there that are actively hurting children by the hundreds of thousands in this country, I want to go after them,” said Keith.
In recent years, Keith helped form the HERO Child-Rescue, where wounded veterans are trained to help rescue children from on-line predators.
There is a unit based in Tampa.
“We put them right back to work hunting bad guys here, and these guys to me are the worst on the planet,” said Keith.
Sadly there is no shortage of work for them.
“The red dots on the map are the locations of computers known for sure to be trafficking in child pornography,” said Keith, pointing to thousands of those dots.
Keith is in Pasco County organizing a fund raising event, to help keep the HERO Corps going.
Sheriff Chris Nocco is a supporter.
So much so, he’d like to hire one of them to fight cyber crimes locally.
“There going to be solving cases, helping our detectives,’ said Nocco.
There will be soon be more than a hundred HERO Corps agents working in the field, to track down the criminals behind those red dots.
You can learn more about the cause by going to www.protect.org
