Ian Moore wanted the 15-year-old to know he was on his way — but first, he had to finish driving his bus route.  So, authorities say, the 29-year-old Seattle man pulled out his phone and started texting photos of himself and the school bus to the 15-year-old he wanted to have sex with.  “Yes dropping 1 student off and heading to you,” the school bus driver wrote, according to a court document.  Just before 4 p.m. Thursday, Moore whipped the bus onto Admiralty Way, a dead-end street near Snohomish County Airport, just north of Seattle. But instead of a teenage girl, he found detectives working on “Project Anvil,” a child sex sting operation.  They arrested the driver, then impounded his bus.  “He admitted he was chatting all day while driving the school bus transporting special needs students,” said Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Shari Ireton.  Moore was one of eight men arrested during the sting — but authorities said he wasn’t the only one who worked with children.  [A Minnesota boy was kidnapped at gunpoint in 1989. Police have finally found his body.]  Investigators also arrested Bryson Condotta, a seventh-grade world history teacher at Aldwerwood Middle School in Lynwood, Wash. According to his teacher profile page, he had also taught government and world history at a nearby high school — students the same age as the girl he believed he had contacted for sex.  Court documents say the 34-year-old asked the girl to message him on kik, a messaging service with features that preserve users’ anonymity. There, the conversations turned sexual.  “Imagine if u were in my classroom, yikes,” one of the less salacious messages read. Later, he added, “Just sayin what it would be like with u in class, too tempting.”  He ultimately agreed to meet the girl at the Serene Village Apartments in Lynwood, where he was met by men with badges.  During an interview after he was arrested, according to a court documents, “Condotta admits the sexual communication was wrong, but insists he was not arriving at the apartment to have sex with the (girl), but to counsel her.”  Sheriff Ty Trenary said the “Project Anvil” operation “makes our communities safer.”  “Protecting our county’s most vulnerable citizens — our children — will always remain our number one public safety priority,” Trenary said in a news release.  Stings aimed at nabbing child sex predators have been going on for decades, but authorities keep arresting people who are almost reckless in their attempts to have sex with children.  In May, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said 32 men and women were arrested in an undercover operation. Among them were two church pastors who responded to online ads for girls they thought were under 18.  And 25 men were arrested in a sting operation in Texas after they solicited what they thought were children between 11 and 15. One suspect brought condoms and alcoholic beverages to the rendezvous earlier this month. Another brought his toddler.  A similar series of stings in Florida’s Polk County — where undercover detectives lure suspected child predators to an undisclosed location using fictitious online ads — has become well-known for netting suspects who work at Disney World, Sea World and other theme parks.  “You would think that these child predators would learn the risk they are taking, but they don’t,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told The Washington Post this year, after announcing the results of another undercover operation. “They’re so fixated on these children, they simply throw caution to the wind, and then we go round up another group of them. They can’t resist taking the chance, and I can’t resist arresting these freaks.”  Sting operations have migrated from chat rooms to apps and social media, places where young people socialize and predators can establish contact, Judd said. What they’re looking for, the Florida sheriff said, is vulnerability.  [They met on a dating site and went bowling. It was a setup, police say, and now he’s dead.]  “They used to have to hang out in parks and coach Little League or teach Sunday school in the past,” Judd said in April. “Now they can download an app and look for kids that are in need of attention — boys and girls. When a 60-year-old man wants to have sex with a 10-year-old child, those are the most dangerous of the dangerous.”  Judd recounted how an undercover officer — posing as a 14-year-old girl on spring break — posted a photo of a beach chair on a beach and said she had “nothing to do.” Within minutes, Judd said, eight different people had posted photos of their “body parts” on the app.  ‘Modern-day slavery’: In $66 million legal claim, teen accuses Oakland cops of using her for sex  This white man says he faced a ‘serious threat.’ Police say he committed a hate crime.  Danny Heinrich admits he abducted and killed Jacob Wetterling, ending a 27-year-old mystery  They met on a dating site and went bowling. It was a setup, police say, and now he’s dead.
The driver thought he was chatting with a teen girl as he drove a bus for special needs students in Washington's Snohomish County.