Kalamazoo, MI — For 10 years, the students at Western Michigan University thought officer Abraham Martin Hohnke, 49, was there to protect them and keep them safe from criminals. All that has since changed however, as Hohnke was exposed this month as a criminal from whom the students needed protecting.

Hohnke was nabbed by fellow officers in an undercover sting for trying to pay a child to have sex with him — in a gas station parking lot — in the back of his pickup truck.

Hohnke and several other child predators were arrested as part of a sting operation run by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office placed ads online offering up sex trafficked children for money. Hohnke responded to the ads, apparently ready and willing to engage in child sex trafficking.

Fortunately, however, there were no trafficked children and the alleged victims were undercover deputies with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the child predators thought they were meeting a 15-year-old girl for sex.

As mLive reports:

A sheriff’s office detective sergeant was posing as a 15-year-old girl online and arranged to meet Hohnke for sex April 13, the affidavit said.

In text messages, Hohnke said multiple times he planned to have sex with the girl. He also asked to videotape the intercourse for later viewing, the affidavit said.

Hohnke drove to a gas station near the hotel on 11th Street in Oshtemo Township where the deputy posing as a girl was at, the affidavit said.

Hohnke asked the girl to walk to him because he wanted to have sex in the back of his pickup, the affidavit said.

While Hohnke waited in the back of his pickup truck for his victim to enter, the door opened and it was deputies instead. Hohnke had a handgun and $1,582 on him when deputies found him waiting in the back of his truck.

After his arrest, Hohnke was arraigned April 15 in Kalamazoo County District Court on one felony count of children – accosting for immoral purposes and one count of computers – internet – communicating with another to commit crime.

He faces up to a decade and a half behind bars for his alleged crimes.

Stings like the one carried out by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office are a vital part of keeping child predators off the streets. Instead of arresting people for drugs, departments across the country should engage of more of this type of policing.

These stings also show us just how prevalent this problem is — especially when cops keep nabbing their fellow cops in the process.

Police sexual misconduct involving children is so prevalent that they are often caught in civilian-run stings as well.

Just last month we reported on a top level official with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department who has been there for 25 years, Sergeant Luis Rios. Rios was busted by the vigilante group People vs. Preds as he tried to meet a 13-year-old boy for sex. 

Last year, we reported on a cop out of Charlotte County, Florida. Charlotte County Deputy Marty Allen, 41, was arrested after pedophile hunters caught him in the act of soliciting a child for sexual relations.

We also reported on Officer Clifford Horn, 54, of Chalfont, PA, who was busted by “the Ped Patrol” and his arrest was livestreamed directly to YouTube as he attempted to have sex with a 14-year-old boy..

Just months before that, a vigilante group known as Waits List caught a cop at an elementary school, identified in the video as “Alan Reese.”

Before that, we reported on Stow Police Chief Ralph Marino who was caught on video attempting to meet a boy he thought was 14.

Article posted with permission from Matt Agorist