To catch a predator

[Tank]

Saw this on TV the other night.

Truely trash TV. Short breakdown of the show. They pose as kids on the internet in chatrooms. Dirty old men sexually groom them and then make arrangements to meet for sex.

Often drive 100's of miles from hick towns in the middle of nowhere to meet the kid.

Get inside the house - kid makes excuse to leave room (actually 19 but looks 13'ish) - TV guy comes out sits them down and says "WTF are you doing dude?"

They leave house very embarrased only to be arrested by police waiting outside who are in on the joke.

Personally I thinking naming / shaming and publicly outing these perverts is a good thing - perhaps there should be more stings like this. Hell there is enough of it going on in NZ as well - perhaps they could do a kiwi version of it.

It does make me worry - I have kids who access the internet. We try to educate them, but you just never know the depths these guys go to try and groom young kids.

Sad little men generally - some young ones who are obviously trying anything to get rid of the big "V" hanging around their necks - the rest seem to be pathetic loosers in their 40's.


Your thoughts?

[Elysium]

Well they did do a show in Auckland where they set up car thieves in cars that a rigged with GPS and the lot and arrest the guys when they steal the car. Had to can the sow because of concernes about public safety.

[Dean]

Here's a classic story on the lines of this.

Well me and my mate are on Bebo, we came home one day and went to log in on bebo on his computer to check out some stuff and we found a person was already logged in....

So we think 'wtf' the only person in his house who uses Bebo is him.

We catch on that its his mother who had been sending her son lots of messages posing as a teen saying "what did you get up to last night", "Have you got any tattoo's that no one knows about" etc.

So the following Monday we logged in from school and replied to the fake account and said that my mate had all kinds of Sexual diseases and tattoo's over his private parts haha she left the house for two days and never spoke to him for ages.

Parents if you're going to create fake aliases on bebo to get info on what your daughter or sons did last night at that party do it right!

[Maha]

Here's a classic story on the lines of this.

Well me and my mate are on Bebo, we came home one day and went to log in on bebo on his computer to check out some stuff and we found a person was already logged in....

So we think 'wtf' the only person in his house who uses Bebo is him.

We catch on that its his mother who had been sending her son lots of messages posing as a teen saying "what did you get up to last night", "Have you got any tattoo's that no one knows about" etc.

So the following Monday we logged in from school and replied to the fake account and said that my mate had all kinds of Sexual diseases and tattoo's over his private parts haha she left the house for two days and never spoke to him for ages.

Parents if you're going to create fake aliases on bebo to get info on what your daughter or sons did last night at that party do it right!

You mean Txt them?

[Tank]

Well me and my mate are on Bebo

oh bebo .......................

[AllanB]

I though it was a post about the Honda Predator. I'd drive a few kms to ride one of them ......

[Miscreant]

Saw this on TV the other night.

Truely trash TV. Short breakdown of the show. They pose as kids on the internet in chatrooms. Dirty old men sexually groom them and then make arrangements to meet for sex.

Often drive 100's of miles from hick towns in the middle of nowhere to meet the kid.

Get inside the house - kid makes excuse to leave room (actually 19 but looks 13'ish) - TV guy comes out sits them down and says "WTF are you doing dude?"

They leave house very embarrased only to be arrested by police waiting outside who are in on the joke.

Personally I thinking naming / shaming and publicly outing these perverts is a good thing - perhaps there should be more stings like this. Hell there is enough of it going on in NZ as well - perhaps they could do a kiwi version of it.

It does make me worry - I have kids who access the internet. We try to educate them, but you just never know the depths these guys go to try and groom young kids.

Sad little men generally - some young ones who are obviously trying anything to get rid of the big "V" hanging around their necks - the rest seem to be pathetic loosers in their 40's.


Your thoughts?

Have faith that you bought your kids up good then relax. Our kids have had completely unrestricted and un supervised acces forever. Never had a problem. I'd be surprised if they hadn't looked at porn, but so long as they show me the good stuff I don't mind.

Incidentally, what was the charge as it appears from your description that they only pretended to be under age. Surely for there to be a crime they must actually be under age.

[Elysium]

I though it was a post about the Honda Predator. I'd drive a few kms to ride one of them ......

I thought it was this kind of predator hunting.

[Tank]

Incidentally, what was the charge as it appears from your description that they only pretended to be under age. Surely for there to be a crime they must actually be under age.

They were charged for 'grooming' as the person identified themselves as a 13yo.

[sil3nt]

There was a NZ version. All faces were blurred though. Pretty fkn sick.

[Winter]

They were charged for 'grooming' as the person identified themselves as a 13yo.

If you read into it some more, i think you will find that in the end, the show was a failure. After all the arrests, they ended up with a very poor (sub 20%?) conviction rate. There was lots of speculation that the police and other LEOs involved had no control over each sting, and people were basically arguing in court that the television crew were out of control.

Rumours of Actors dressed in police uniform, someone getting shot on an 'accidental discharge' etc etc.



If they could do it right, what fantastic television it would make.

[golfmade]

If I remember right it started out originally on a 'news' program called Dateline, got popular so they spun it off into it's own show.

[Okey Dokey]

What passes for television "entertainment" these days is pretty pathetic.

[CookMySock]

What passes for television "entertainment" these days is pretty pathetic.

Most of it deliberately designed to damage or infuriate.

Turn the telly off. Find something interesting and fun to do.

Steve

[firefighter]

Well they did do a show in Auckland where they set up car thieves in cars that a rigged with GPS and the lot and arrest the guys when they steal the car. Had to can the sow because of concernes about public safety.

On one of the shows, and I cannot believe they showed it, the thieves got away because there were no cops close enough to pursue, and the GPS must have been destroyed at the chop shop.

I'd like to know how it's more dangerous for the public than non-sting cars being stolen.