![]() One of the movement's biggest hubs is in British Columbia, where Creep Hunters rub shoulders with Creep Busters, Creep Catchers, and other self-appointed justice-seekers. That was the original draw for Tyler Fritsen, the 30-year-old construction worker who founded Creep Hunters last year after a dispute with the original Creep Catcher: "Public shaming is way better than anything a court can do." But Canada's new predator hunters don't have to wait for a TV network to come calling: They have the cameras in their hands, a captive audience on social media, and an Internet culture that thrives on public humiliation. Outside, police were waiting to arrest them for sexually soliciting an underage kid-a crime known as "child luring" in Canada-while NBC's cameras caught everything. When it aired from 2004 to 2007, To Catch a Predator was an elaborately choreographed TV spectacle: Producers rented a house, where actors hired to play underage decoys waited for the alleged predators to show up. "Everyone's going to know who the fuck you are, you pedophile fuck."įormer Creep Hunter Tyler Fritsen Kamil Bialous Raymond had a more confrontational, in-your-face approach, along with a slogan, "Yer Done Bud!" "I've got over two million views on my Facebook," Raymond told one man as he accused him of trying to lure a 13-year-old girl. "I want to make it dramatic for the public."Īnother young construction worker, Dawson Raymond, had seen a few of Payne's videos and decided to take his stings a step further: In 2015, he teamed up with a friend in Calgary to start a group he called Creep Catcher. "I try to pick the youngest age possible," he said. The video was Payne's first viral hit, and he kept giving the public what it wanted to see. Then he decided to try something different: He made a fake dating profile, posing as an underage boy "just to see what would happen." He couldn't believe it when a man actually responded and wanted to meet up, so he decided to tape the confrontation, To Catch a Predator-style, and post it online. "I was trying to get better and better every video, but there was no spark," he said. About four years ago, Justin Payne, a twenty-nine-year-old construction worker in Ontario, was goofing around in front of the camera, doing comedy skits and pranks to post on Instagram and YouTube. "You've been talking to us to the whole time, man."Ĭanada's original creep hunter wasn't on any righteous crusade he just wanted to make videos that people liked watching. ![]() "Aw, shit-" the man sputters as he scrambles to his feet, backing into the corner.īrady and G-Man keep their voices low and even, to keep him from running. "The fifteen-year-old girl you came here to meet." "I'm Kat," Brady says, pointing his phone at the man's face. Brady and G-Man walk over to his table, avoiding eye contact until the last possible second. Brady and G-Man pull out their phones, turn the video recorders on, and make their move.Ī large, soft-looking man in a suit is sitting near the soda dispensers, fiddling with his phone. Two men huddle in the middle of the restaurant: Brendon Brady, a skinny dude with a goatee and a blue streak down the front of his hair, and a stockier, middle-aged guy in a polo shirt who calls himself G-Man. ![]() The place is packed with young families and chattering teenagers. But the man doesn't have a car, so he heads there on foot, walking into McDonald's with a damp head of hair. Before leaving that night in November, according to her screenshots, he sent Kat a photo of himself: black suit, striped tie, purple pocket square. He still wanted to dress up for the occasion. But after an entire month of emails and cancelled plans, he settled for a McDonald's outside of Vancouver, Canada, where they both lived. The man grew increasingly eager to meet up, proposing they'd go "someplace elegant" for coffee and dessert, according to Kat's messages. "You are 110 percent very special and it gives me melts of joy to see u sooo happy." "Hi Almost Sweet 16," he wrote a few days later. Sweet Sixteen coming soon eh?" From then on, Kat's age became a term of endearment for the man, who said he was thirty-five. "So u are quite young," he wrote back, according to Kat's screenshots of the emails. ![]()
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