Now, thanks in part to social media, these groups have multiplied rapidly in recent months, propelled by a rabid and growing fanbase, according to law enforcement officials and Facebook data. In British Columbia, Ryan LaForge made a name (and a criminal record, pleading guilty to two counts of assault) with his group, Creep Catchers, and in Michigan, Zach Sweers caught potential predators under the name “Anxiety War” until 2016, when he settled two civil lawsuits from targets. There have been several copycats of “To Catch a Predator,” including Ontario construction worker Justin Payne, who ensnared dozens of men by 2015.
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Ratings soared, and the network described it as a public service, but in three years the series was over, after drawing negative news coverage, advertiser wariness and a lawsuit from the family of a target who killed himself, which was later settled, with both parties saying only that it had “been amicably resolved." The idea isn’t new - the NBC News “Dateline” show mined the same territory in its special series, “To Catch a Predator,” from 2004 to 2007. POPSquad is one of dozens of similar online groups across the country unified by what they say is a mission to expose and shame people they allege are or could become sexual predators, according to an NBC News review of these groups on Facebook.
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Malcolm honked twice as he sped away, driving 30 minutes back home to his parents’ house in Torrington, where he hanged himself. How do you feel?” Erdmann asked, according to people who saw the video.
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As Malcolm walked to his car, Erdmann followed to film his license plate, reading the numbers aloud, “for the camera,” Erdmann said. “I don’t have anything to live for,” Malcolm said as he stared at the ground.Īlthough his targets may initially believe otherwise, Erdmann isn’t with the police, and Malcolm wasn’t required to talk with POPSquad. NBC News spoke to three people who watched it - two friends of Malcolm’s and one POPSquad fan - and described its contents.)Ĭonfronting Malcolm with copies of the alleged sexual online messages sent to a POPSquad member, Erdmann asked: Why had Malcolm come? What disgusting things was he planning to do? What would his family think? (The entire encounter was posted on Facebook the next day, though it was later removed. Like the others before him, Malcolm was greeted by Shane Erdmann, 31, better known by his alias “Incognito,” who questioned and berated Malcolm as the camera rolled. For the 126th time in two years, the group - an acronym for Prey on Predators - had catfished a man on the internet, posing as an underage teen on hookup apps and luring him into a meetup, this time at an empty home whose owner allows it to be used for the group’s stings, according to POPSquad. When Malcolm arrived, he found that there was no boy - there was only POPSquad. On that October night, he had come to Bristol to meet someone younger, purportedly a 14-year-old boy “going on 15,” according to a video posted by the digital vigilante group known as POPSquad. Starting in high school, Malcolm used apps like Tinder and Grindr to meet men from around the state, friends said. “It’s not easy to be black, Jamaican, a Jehovah’s Witness and gay in Torrington, Connecticut,” said Allie Morrissey, a friend of Malcolm’s. Malcolm was also gay, which was difficult growing up in a religious family in Torrington, a sleepy former mill town in the northwest part of the state, friends said.
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Alain Malcolm's entry in his high school yearbook.
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Earlier this year, he was named one of Litchfield County’s 40 Leaders Under 40. 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. 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.