Everyone knows Chris Hansen’s show, To Catch A Predator. He was praised for exposing pedophiles to the world by posing online as underage girls that the pedophiles attempted to meet in-person, collecting evidence against the perpetrators just like law enforcement. But now, teenagers inspired by Hansen are exacting their own form of retribution against purported pedophiles. Their methods are less virtuous and less legal.
Lawful Vigilantism
At a park in Temecula, CA, twenty teenagers lay in wait for a 46-year-old man. They immediately began recording him and calling the police. The man thought he was meeting an underage girl, to whom he had been sending illicit images. Through these teenagers’ efforts, police arrested him and charged him with various sex crimes [1]. Stories like this paint the movement in a positive light, as the teenagers exposed a pedophile while acting within the confines of the law.
Unlawful Vigilantism
Recent stings that have garnered attention have turned violent and criminal. A ploy of ‘cleaning up the streets’ has turned into these self-anointed vigilantes robbing and assaulting victims who are too scared to report the crimes. They are too scared because they have been lured by someone pretending to be underaged. The apparent theory for these teenagers is that the perpetrator cannot report the crime without facing felony charges, so they can commit whatever crime against him without consequences. Teenagers capitalize on this by luring alleged child predators through online dating apps, then beating the apparent predator and damaging their car. These teenagers find out the hard way that the law does not appreciate their vigilante efforts. They are quickly charged with battery, criminal damage, and in some cases, even hate crimes [2]. In another case, the teenagers beat an elderly man so bad that he died from his injuries [3].
The movement is also tarnished by some who ostensibly seek to profit from it. One X (formerly Twitter) account based in Arizona posted its sting operation of a man who apparently thought he was meeting an underage girl. The video opens with the man, already bloody, being dragged around and further beaten. The video later cuts to the beginning of the setup, where the teenagers confront the man and take his wallet and other belongings. There is a word for taking another person’s property through the threat of harm. That word is “robbery.” Robbery is a felony [4]. These actions call into question the motives of some who copy To Catch A Predator. Are they actually altruistic heroes seeking to rid the streets of dangerous child predators, or are they using that as a pretext and moral shield to assault and steal from others?
The movement came under the most fire when teenagers recently targeted a benign meet-up. A group of 25 eighteen-year-olds posed as an eighteen-year-old girl on Tinder, inviting a twenty-two-year old man to meet on campus. The teenagers then berated, attacked, chased, and video-recorded him, accusing him of wanting to have sex with an underage girl. Police reviewed the messages that were exchanged and concluded that the man had no such intention [5]. This is often when vigilantes and mobs are criticized, in times where vigilantes penalize conduct that society has deemed acceptable. Society has long accepted a four-year age difference among adults. And so has the law. When vigilantes punish conduct that society and the legal system condone, it contravenes individual expectations and usurps the purported freedom to act within the confines of society and the legal system. Actions like this prompt the question of whether these sting operations are for justice or for TikTok fame.
Teenagers’ “Chris Hansen” Movement
A movement that, at first glance, is a righteous form of vigilantism for teenagers has gone too far in certain instances. When teenagers enact a sting operation then lawfully collect evidence and alert the authorities, their actions are clearly righteous. That is not in dispute. But when they take justice into their own hands, they expose themselves to criminal liability [6]. And this is the correct result, for the United States and other developed countries are long past mob rule. To deem those actions acceptable allows violent individuals to pretextually harm others, financially enrich themselves, and brazenly shield themselves from moral culpability of felonious acts. It also undermines the rule of law when people are simply expected to assume the guilt of the purported child predator and are subject to punishment for conduct that is societally and legally recognized as benign. Society should praise teenagers who nonviolently collect evidence against pedophiles, but it should rebuke those who take it any further.
[1] 20 Teens Band Together to Catch Suspected Pedophile in California.
[3] Dutch police give ‘stop paedophile hunts’ warning after Arnhem death.
[4] A.R.S. § 13-1902 explicitly states that a person “commits robbery if in the course of taking any property of another from his person or immediate presence and against his will, such person threatens or uses force against any person with intent either to coerce surrender of property or to prevent resistance to such person taking or retaining property.”
[5] 5 college students charged in case stemming from ‘Catch a Predator’ trend on TikTok.
[6] Under Arizona law, for example, these vigilantes could be charged with unlawful imprisonment (A.R.S. § 13-1303), assault and/or aggravated assault (A.R.S. §§ 13-1203, 1204), threatening or intimidating (A.R.S. §§ 13-1202), and many other crimes, depending on the action taken.
Brad TenBrook is a former Assistant Attorney General in Arizona. Brad’s practice now focuses on child abuse and neglect litigation.
Sam Fraser is a 2l at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. As a law clerk at Woodnick Law PLLC, Sam has the opportunity to assist with real cases and to research areas of interest relating to his future practice of law.