Six men were arrested in Henry County, Alabama, and charged with trying to exploit children, in an operation the sheriff’s office timed deliberately to the week before Halloween. The arrests were announced on Monday, October 26.

The operation was called Predator’s Nightmare. It was run by the Henry County Sheriff’s Office together with Covenant Rescue Group, an organization that works with law enforcement on child exploitation cases.

All six face the same three charges: first-degree human trafficking, electronic solicitation of a minor, and traveling to meet a minor for an unlawful sex act.

The men charged are Sean Richard Cockrell, 57, of Panama City, Florida; Derek Dewayne Kidd Moten Jr., 37, of Ozark; Khadevious D. Johnson, 29, of Headland; Nickalous Yemond McCoy, 21, of Eufaula; Tashun O’Hara, 19, of Cuthbert, Georgia; and Jaquavious Marez Bouier, 24, of Eufaula.

Three of them face additional counts. McCoy and Bouier were each charged with second-degree marijuana possession, and Bouier also faces a felony count of attempting to elude. O’Hara faces an attempting-to-elude charge as well.

All six were held in the Henry County Jail without bond. Every one of these charges is an allegation, and none of the men has been tried.

The sheriff’s office said the operation is still running and that more arrests will be announced.

Sheriff Eric Blankenship put the message to parents plainly.

“Protecting our children takes all of us working together,” he said. “Stay alert, stay involved, and never hesitate to report suspicious activity.”

Henry County is a rural county in the southeast corner of Alabama with a population of around 17,000. Four of the six men charged came from outside it, two from across a state line.

That is the part worth noticing. This was not a big-city task force with a federal budget behind it. It was a small county sheriff’s office working with a nonprofit, and it produced six arrests in a single operation in a county that size.

The timing was not an accident either. The sheriff’s office said the operation targeted people looking to exploit children in the run-up to Halloween, the one night of the year when a stranger approaching a child in the dark looks like nothing at all.