Apr 8, 2015 2 min read

Stories that illustrate the dangers of the Internet are legion. Another one was added this week, right in our backyard.

A 17-year-old girl from Avella reported that she was assaulted and raped Monday at Cross Creek County Park by a man she had “met” that same day on a social networking website.

The girl said she and a man connected on the Tango site and agreed to meet at the rural park. She said they walked down a path, where the man hit her on the head, dragged her into the woods and raped her. He then ran off, and a woman came to the girl’s assistance.

We certainly don’t intend this as “blaming the victim,” but what was this girl thinking?

We beseech everyone who uses the Internet, especially young people, to take extreme care in their online dealings, and to be especially wary of strangers they meet on the Web. In this day when it seems everyone under a certain age has a smartphone permanently affixed to his or her hands, it’s inevitable that people are going to use the Internet as a tool to meet people of the opposite sex. But at the very least, please make sure the initial meetings take place in a very public location, with plenty of people around.

While it might be hard for her to see it this way now, the teen who reported the assault at Cross Creek might someday come to realize she was lucky. She easily could have been raped and murdered.