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He lures alleged child predators and shames them on Facebook. Now one of his targets is dead.

TU Curmudgeon

B.A. (Sarc), LLb. (Lex Sarcasus), PhD (Sarc.)
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From NBC News

He lures alleged child predators and shames them on Facebook. Now one of his targets is dead.

On a cool evening in October, Alain Malcolm, 20, walked into a vacant two-story colonial house in Bristol, Connecticut. Two members of a local internet vigilante group — who regularly try to expose and shame alleged child predators they entice online — were waiting for him.

Malcolm was tall and handsome. The oldest son of Jamaican immigrants, he wholly subscribed to the idea of the American dream. In high school, Malcolm was vice president of the Future Business Leaders of America club, assistant captain of the tennis and swim teams and a member of the student council and Model United Nations. He started a social marketing business at 15.

After graduating in 2016, Malcolm filled his Instagram and Facebook feeds with photos of New York high-rises, bathroom selfies in three-piece suits and links to news articles in which he was featured. He went to community college while working as a junior buyer for a local circuit-board manufacturer and was the subject of a Connecticut Public Television series that profiled recent high school graduates.

Earlier this year, he was named one of Litchfield County’s 40 Leaders Under 40.

COMMENT:-

Can we TRY to keep the discussion focused on THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR TACTICS?

I think that we can take it as a given that "child predators" are not the type of people we want to admire.

OK?

Analogies to lynchings are just BARELY within the scope of the discussion I would prefer to see.
 
Entrapment is illegal, and for good reason.
 
Entrapment is illegal, and for good reason.

I think, legally speaking, it is only entrapment if law enforcement does it. What these private citizens are doing appears to be legal. But it makes me very uncomfortable as you never know what could go wrong.

Also, I have an ethical problem with punishing people via public shaming on social media. My problem is there is no leash on it. You can’t turn it off once the appropriate amount of punishment has been reached. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and worse and worse for the target. And heaven forbid the target has the same name as an innocent person.

I wouldn’t call it lynching, but it is mob justice and it can get out of hand.
 
Entrapment is illegal, and for good reason.

Entrapment would be if the police ticked someone into viewing child pornography so as to secure prosecution of them for viewing child pornography. It's when they induce someone to commit a crime they wouldn't have or would have been sufficiently unlikely to commit. And it's not so much that it's "illegal" but that it is a complete defense against a criminal charge.
 
Entrapment is illegal, and for good reason.

Entrapment consists of two things

  1. providing an opportunity for the commission of a crime that the person otherwise wouldn't have committed; and
  2. convincing the person to take advantage of the opportunity you have provided.

If the person WOULD have committed the crime - even if the opportunity that you provided didn't exist - then there is no entrapment.
 
From NBC News

He lures alleged child predators and shames them on Facebook. Now one of his targets is dead.

On a cool evening in October, Alain Malcolm, 20, walked into a vacant two-story colonial house in Bristol, Connecticut. Two members of a local internet vigilante group — who regularly try to expose and shame alleged child predators they entice online — were waiting for him.

Malcolm was tall and handsome. The oldest son of Jamaican immigrants, he wholly subscribed to the idea of the American dream. In high school, Malcolm was vice president of the Future Business Leaders of America club, assistant captain of the tennis and swim teams and a member of the student council and Model United Nations. He started a social marketing business at 15.

After graduating in 2016, Malcolm filled his Instagram and Facebook feeds with photos of New York high-rises, bathroom selfies in three-piece suits and links to news articles in which he was featured. He went to community college while working as a junior buyer for a local circuit-board manufacturer and was the subject of a Connecticut Public Television series that profiled recent high school graduates.

Earlier this year, he was named one of Litchfield County’s 40 Leaders Under 40.

COMMENT:-

Can we TRY to keep the discussion focused on THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR TACTICS?

I think that we can take it as a given that "child predators" are not the type of people we want to admire.

OK?

Analogies to lynchings are just BARELY within the scope of the discussion I would prefer to see.

If your target is 15 year old boy, can you really be considered a predator tho? I mean, I once had a fish jump in the boat when I wasn't even fishing. That's about how hard it is to convince a 15 year old male to have sex. You could literally just say the word sex, and give a 15 yo a boner.

To me a predator is someone who uses false pretenses to trick and coerce. IE I have candy little kid come with me. Or, if you want to be popular you will do this, or just a friend who waits til your guard is down or your drunk and has their way by force.

Asking someone, you wanna have sex, and them saying heck yeah. Isn't predatory, even when the kid's 15. Illegal? Yes. But not predatory. Especially when it comes to males. Teenage males are pretty much all one hormone burst away from the sex offenders list.

I don't think this guy should have killed themselves, and I think the people who did it should feel real bad. But they won't, they used a 15 year old gay male specifically because the morals on that is a grey area and their chances of tricking someone to show up would raise dramatically.
 
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This wasnt a lonely man looking for a partner. It was an adult specifically looking for a child victim. He hung himself, not because what he was doing but because he got caught.

I dont know. This group has exposed 126 predators. And while its easy to get caught up in the tragic...its tragic when someone that young takes their own life...Its hard to ignore the reality that these people were not innocently sitting at home while some child target pranced across their living room floor. They went looking for victims. Which is a pretty good indicator that of the 126 that have been caught, there have been many more actual victims. Its just hard for me to get too spun up on this.
 
If your target is 15 year old boy, can you really be considered a predator tho? I mean, I once had a fish jump in the boat when I wasn't even fishing. That's about how hard it is to convince a 15 year old male to have sex. You could literally just say the word sex, and give a 15 yo a boner.

To me a predator is someone who uses false pretenses to trick and coerce. IE I have candy little kid come with me. Or, if you want to be popular you will do this, or just a friend who waits til your guard is down or your drunk and has their way by force.

Asking someone, you wanna have sex, and them saying heck yeah. Isn't predatory, even when the kid's 15. Illegal? Yes. But not predatory. Especially when it comes to males. Teenage males are pretty much all one hormone burst away from the sex offenders list.

Interesting thoughts.

How much below 15 would you think it would have to be before it constituted "enticement"?

14?

13?

12?

11?

10?

9?

8?

7?

6?

5?

4?

3?

2?

1?
 
He went to have sex with a 14 year old, not knowing it was an anti-pedophile catfishing group. When informed what he had attempted to do online so others including his family would know, he later committed suicide.

So the purpose of this thread is that not only should pedophiles not be prosecuted, they should not even be publicly exposed because then they might hurt themselves? Is that the point? How to protect pedophiles from being embarrassed over criminally sexually assaulting children?
 
Interesting thoughts.

How much below 15 would you think it would have to be before it constituted "enticement"?

14?

13?

12?

11?

10?

9?

8?

7?

6?

5?

4?

3?

2?

1?

Let's see my grandmother was married off when she was 13 to 27 year old man, so let's go with 13. Because Christians swear up and down, they don't believe in child marriage. Yet the law that let my grandmother get married off that requires the approval of a judge, and a pastor, is still in effect in my home state.

So... Is that sufficient?

And my father was 15 when I was conceived, while my mom was 18. I was born when he was 16. And no one gave her **** for that...
 
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He went to have sex with a 14 year old, not knowing it was an anti-pedophile catfishing group. When informed what he had attempted to do online so others including his family would know, he later committed suicide.

So the purpose of this thread is that not only should pedophiles not be prosecuted, they should not even be publicly exposed because then they might hurt themselves?

How you could possibly infer that "the purpose of this thread is that not only should pedophiles not be prosecuted" is totally beyond me.

How asking whether the tactics of this group were acceptable could possibly be confused with "they should not even be publicly exposed because then they might hurt themselves" is also totally beyond me.

Is that the point? How to protect pedophiles from being embarrassed over criminally sexually assaulting children?

Why not try reading for comprehension.

PS - Did you realize that your second paragraph's "So the purpose of ..." contradicts your "Is that the point?"?
 
From NBC News

He lures alleged child predators and shames them on Facebook. Now one of his targets is dead.

On a cool evening in October, Alain Malcolm, 20, walked into a vacant two-story colonial house in Bristol, Connecticut. Two members of a local internet vigilante group — who regularly try to expose and shame alleged child predators they entice online — were waiting for him.

Malcolm was tall and handsome. The oldest son of Jamaican immigrants, he wholly subscribed to the idea of the American dream. In high school, Malcolm was vice president of the Future Business Leaders of America club, assistant captain of the tennis and swim teams and a member of the student council and Model United Nations. He started a social marketing business at 15.

After graduating in 2016, Malcolm filled his Instagram and Facebook feeds with photos of New York high-rises, bathroom selfies in three-piece suits and links to news articles in which he was featured. He went to community college while working as a junior buyer for a local circuit-board manufacturer and was the subject of a Connecticut Public Television series that profiled recent high school graduates.

Earlier this year, he was named one of Litchfield County’s 40 Leaders Under 40.

COMMENT:-

Can we TRY to keep the discussion focused on THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR TACTICS?

I think that we can take it as a given that "child predators" are not the type of people we want to admire.

OK?

Analogies to lynchings are just BARELY within the scope of the discussion I would prefer to see.

We agree that child predators are not people we want to admire?

I would argue that they are people that we do not want alive in our society to harm children.
 
I don't really agree with the tactics of the group but I am not going to feel bad for whatever happens to someone looking to have sex with a child. Reminds me of the show 'To Catch a Predator' and how they almost had to do traffic control when dealing with the amount of pervs that would show up.
 
Given the facts laid out in the OP,(20 year old seeking sex with 14 year old) I'm struggling to find empathy.
 
I wonder how many of the child victims have committed suicide as results of the assaults they have suffered?
 
Let's see my grandmother was married off when she was 13 to 27 year old man, so let's go with 13. Because Christians swear up and down, they don't believe in child marriage. Yet the law that let my grandmother get married off that requires the approval of a judge, and a pastor, is still in effect in my home state.

So... Is that sufficient?

And my father was 15 when I was conceived, while my mom was 18. I was born when he was 16. And no one gave her **** for that...

Was he married to the 14 year old? Any reason you believe that he was?
 
They are not physically harming anyone! It almost counts as community service, covered under freedom of speech.
I think we need more people paying attention to who is praying on our children, not less.
 
Zero sympathy, none whatsoever.. One less predator is a good thing! I honestly think we need more of this stuff by communities.


Tim-
 
I wonder how many of the child victims have committed suicide as results of the assaults they have suffered?

Good question.

Now I do recall reading (that was back in the days when words were "printed" on "paper" that was then "circulated" in things like "books", "magazines", "journals" and "newspapers" - so I really don't have a "link" to provide you) that one of the major factory is the level of trauma that children suffered from being sexually abused was how exaggerated the reactions of the adults were to the abuse.

That's not to say that there wouldn't be any trauma in all cases - only to say that exaggerated adult reactions would (almost) always increase the child's trauma.
 
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