DICKSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Dickson County Sheriff’s Office has a division dedicated to protecting children from criminals on the internet. Earlier this week, that division carried out an undercover operation to arrest a man allegedly trying to meet up with a minor.

In some cases, authorities with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit of the sheriff’s office pretend to be kids as they surf the web in order to catch sexual predators.

“The internet is a wide open playground for everybody, especially teens and kids who get on websites and chatrooms and start messaging people through apps who they do not know, and that is where the danger comes in and that’s why these types of cases are so important,” explained Lt. Jennifer Caruthers with the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office shared body cam footage from Wednesday, March 8 with News 2. It shows an undercover law enforcement officer driving into a parking lot and arresting 59-year-old Timothy Mazny of Nashville.

The deputy was armed with a taser, and the suspect complied without incident, getting out of the minivan he was driving. His only words were “I’m sorry.”

According to investigators, Mazny though he was meeting a child, but he was shocked to learn that he was actually meeting a member of Dickson County’s ICAC division.

“He was soliciting online to meet a minor in Dickson County,” Caruthers said. “He drove down here for that purpose.”

According to the Department of Justice, ICAC task force programs like the one in Dickson County conducted more than 137,000 investigations in 2021, resulting in the arrests of more than 10,000 people.

“These kind of cases are important because they pertain to some of the most susceptible people that we have, which are our children,” Caruthers told News 2. “These perpetrators get online behind a keyboard and entice minors. Whether they’re 17 or 10, these people can find kids.”

Mazny, who is charged with solicitation of a minor, is being held in the Dickson County Jail under a $75,000 bond.

Even though Mazny is from Nashville, Davidson County records show no previous arrest history there.