Pedobear is not "new" and honestly it surprises me that they are just now "noticing" this in any form even a poorly understood one, especially after high profile incidents like him "sneaking into" the mascot artwork for the Olympics in Canada.
In reality Pedobear is used to sort of mock pedophilles and the entire situation (including people who go to ridiculous lengths to witch hunt pedos, or create pedo-contreversy when there shouldn't be any). Not as a symbol for Pedophilles to communicate with each other.
What's more I believe a lot of "children" and teens on the internet use him as a joke intentionally to mock their own alleged innocence. I've seen artwork and pictures taken/shopped with Pedobear that were intentionally set up at jokes. Pedobear walking around comics con, posing for pictures, and handing out of candy is a sort of dark bit of humor, and I doubt the guy in the costume was a pedo or that the kids posing with him were really all that naive and instead were doing it for the lulz.
In general when Pedobear "approves" of something typically it's said in response to some sicko who is trying to justify a pedo-centric position as a way of poking fun of it. Anoher good example of how it's used (for the naive) is when (as mentioned above) someone like Chris Hanson is "trying too hard" and themselves becoming a freak. The whole Pedobear/Chris Hanson rivalry joke (which is kind of old now) pokes fun at the idea that he's arguably become just as obnoxious with Pedo-baiting as the Pedos themselves.
At any rate, all rambling aside, this is funny, but it's also disturbing that law enforcement could be this far out of touch. No Pedo would be likely to use "Pedobear" because in the end the whole character exists to mock everything they are about.
