Courtesy of Predator Poachers
Vigilantes and police are battling in Longmont — but this isn’t a comic book.
Predator Poachers, a famous social media group from Texas that completes its own “stings” on suspected child predators, traveled to Longmont on June 9 to live-stream a “predator catch” of a man at a public park.
According to Alex Rosen, the founder of Predator Poachers, the man admitted to having child sexual material on his phone and was attempting to meet up with a father and daughter for … unspecified heinous activities. The father and daughter were not real, of course, but were instead a ploy by the group to catch the man red-handed.
While Longmont police officers can be seen in the video searching through the man’s bag, Rosen says, “Unfortunately, because the liberal kingdom of Colorado — Boulder County — there’s going to be no arrest made tonight.”
Rosen goes on to say that the probable cause to arrest the man was “off the charts,” but the “liberal” policies of the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office weren’t going to allow the officers to arrest the man.
The police department and the district attorney’s office seemingly took offense to that, and released a public statement the next day.
“The release of this video has understandably raised concerns in the community,” the department said, adding that the Poacher group is not trained law enforcement and should not “attempt to investigate or confront individuals on their own.”
Furthermore, in a bit of muscle flexing, the department said that had it collected evidence during the interaction and is actively looking into the man using its own computer forensics lab and the District Attorney’s Office’s specialized Human Trafficking Unit.
“For any sex offense committed in Boulder County, law enforcement conducts a careful and thorough investigation,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in the statement. “Once the Longmont Police Department’s investigation is complete, they will provide all evidence to our office, and we will determine whether probable cause exists to prosecute. Citizens should not conduct their own investigations and should leave these matters to trained law enforcement.”
Westword reached out to the department to ask whether it had been looking into the man before the video release or whether the Poachers video sparked the investigation, but the department declined to comment.
Predators and prey
Online predator-hunter videos emerged around the end of the 2010s, filling the morbid curiosity gap left by the end of Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator in 2007. The premise is basically the same: Someone acts as a minor online, agrees to meet up with an adult, and the “catchers” show up.
The genre is wildly popular, with Predator Poachers alone having over 250,000 followers on Facebook and over 360,000 on YouTube since its start in 2019.
The Longmont spat isn’t the first time that Colorado police have battled with self-proclaimed predator hunters, though.
Colorado Ped Patrol — another YouTube group centralized in the state — got flak from local departments in 2021 for its unlicensed brand of street justice.
“There are some real safety concerns … we have no control over communications or evidence they are obtaining,” Former Lakewood Commander Randy McNitt told CBS in 2021. “I think it’s a bad idea. I think a citizen vigilante group is fraught with peril.”
Either way, some locals online love the Texas group’s work in Longmont.
“Colorado‘s laws allowed there to be no reasonable cause to make an arrest on him, so now he is roaming the streets once again, thanks to Mr. Polis,” one commenter wrote on the Facebook video.
“Wow, that is extremely sad that they wouldn’t arrest him. Very scary,” another wrote.
But others have criticicized what they see as the Predator Poachers’ political agenda. Founder Rose has been seen harassing anti-ICE protestors in Houston and has openly supported President Donald Trump, despite his dedication to catching child predators.
Guess he hasn’t heard about the Epstein files.
