To catch a predator

Now Georgia Crime Reporter Kevin Angell is a career law enforcement professional with experience serving agencies in both Florida and Georgia. He is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who served during Operation Enduring Iraqi Freedom and holds a doctorate in criminal justice from Liberty University. 

Civilian groups that use online decoy accounts to identify suspected child predators can uncover valuable information for law enforcement, but taking an investigation into their own hands can also jeopardize criminal cases, destroy evidence and create potentially dangerous confrontations.

The growing popularity of so-called “predator catcher” groups is understandable. Online child exploitation is vast in scope, and law enforcement agencies do not have enough investigators to proactively pursue every potential offender. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 20 million CyberTipline reports in 2024 alone, according to the source material.

Civilian groups sometimes use accounts posing as minors to communicate with adults they believe are seeking sexual contact with children. They may collect usernames, phone numbers, photographs and conversations before arranging an in-person meeting.

That information can be useful to investigators and, in some cases, civilian investigations have led to arrests and successful prosecutions.

The concern arises when civilians move from gathering information to confronting suspects themselves.

Confrontations can create danger

In many online videos, groups arrange to meet a suspected predator at a parking lot, restaurant or store, then confront the person while recording or livestreaming the encounter.

Such confrontations may attract attention on social media, but they do not necessarily strengthen a criminal case. They can also create an unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation.

A person who arrives expecting to meet a child may suddenly find himself surrounded by adults with cameras and accused publicly of being a sexual predator. Within moments, that person may realize his family, career, reputation and freedom could be at risk.

Law enforcement officers train for suspects who may fight, flee, reach for weapons, use vehicles to escape or otherwise act irrationally when confronted with arrest. Civilian groups generally do not have access to criminal-history information, backup officers, tactical teams, body armor or immediate medical assistance.

As the source puts it: “A cellphone camera and six buddies are not a tactical plan.”

A suspect may already be under investigation

Another problem is that civilian groups cannot know what investigators may already know about the person they are targeting.

A suspect identified through a decoy account could already be under investigation. He could be communicating with actual children, possess child sexual abuse material, have additional online accounts or be connected to other offenders.

There may also be unidentified victims.

That means a civilian confrontation could inadvertently alert a suspect to an investigation before police have an opportunity to secure evidence.

Once confronted, a suspect can delete accounts, wipe computers, discard phones, empty cloud storage or warn others. More troubling, someone communicating with actual children could contact, threaten or pressure those victims before investigators identify them.

What may look like police inaction from the outside can sometimes be investigators quietly building a larger case.

Screenshots aren’t the whole case

Screenshots and online conversations can provide evidence, but investigators and prosecutors generally need much more to build a case capable of surviving scrutiny in court.

Investigators must establish who controlled an account, who initiated conversations, when a suspect learned the purported child’s age, whether messages were deleted and whether the communications can be authenticated.

They may also seek records from online providers, determine what device was used, establish where it was located and search for additional accounts or evidence stored on physical devices.

Those considerations are part of an investigation from the beginning for trained Internet Crimes Against Children investigators. Civilian groups may have a different objective — arranging the meeting and confrontation.

Civilian investigations have helped

Civilian predator-catching efforts should not automatically be dismissed. Some have identified previously unknown suspects and preserved conversations that ultimately helped police make arrests and prosecutors secure convictions. The key distinction may be what happens after suspicious activity is discovered.

A civilian who preserves the information and quickly turns it over to law enforcement may provide investigators with an important lead. A group that conducts its own investigation, arranges a meeting, confronts and questions the suspect, broadcasts the person’s identity and only afterward calls police creates a more complicated situation. Investigators must then determine whether the evidence was legally obtained, whether it can be authenticated and whether the resulting case will hold up in court.

Social media adds another complication.

The popularity of predator-catching videos also raises questions about credibility when organizations make money through views, subscriptions, donations or merchandise. That does not mean their allegations are false, but financial incentives can become an issue for defense attorneys questioning the motives and credibility of those involved. Professional investigators can also face credibility challenges in court, but their compensation is not tied to whether a particular confrontation generates views online.

What about entrapment?

Entrapment is another issue frequently raised in discussions about online decoy operations.

Simply pretending to be a child does not automatically make a resulting criminal case entrapment. Law enforcement agencies have used undercover identities and decoys for years. The legal questions can involve who induced the alleged criminal conduct, whether the suspect was predisposed to commit it and, in cases involving civilians, whether those individuals were operating independently or effectively acting as agents of law enforcement.

An independent citizen who uncovers suspected criminal activity and reports it to police presents a different legal situation from civilians conducting operations at the direction of law enforcement.

Report it — don’t confront

People who encounter someone online they believe is attempting to sexually exploit a child can still play an important role. Preserve the conversation, username, profile, telephone numbers and other identifying information. Do not delete potential evidence. Contact local law enforcement or the appropriate Internet Crimes Against Children task force and provide investigators with what was collected.

Civilians should avoid turning the investigation into a physical confrontation. Don’t arrange the meeting. Don’t surround, chase or attempt to detain the suspect.

Identifying a potential predator can give police an important lead. Allowing trained investigators to take it from there may give them the best opportunity to identify victims, preserve evidence and build a case that will stand up in court.