This is part one of a two-part series about what鈥檚 wrong with the Creep Catchers
The video is hard to watch as a man in his 60s meets up with what he thinks is a 12-year-old boy at a Chilliwack McDonald鈥檚.
Awkward doesn鈥檛 go far enough to explain the following 31 minutes and 46 seconds as 67-year-old Don Putt is confronted, then harassed, belittled and bullied by members of Creep Catchers.
But unlike most other of the now well-known Creep Catchers videos that usually involve a shocked-looking man, confronted by aggressive guys with iPhones calling him a pedophile, Putt didn鈥檛 flee the scene. He sat there engaging with the online vigilantes, even as the interaction became immature, abusive and even threatening.
Present at the interaction, which ended with the arrest of Putt, which itself later culminated in a six-month prison sentence, was Ryan Laforge of the Surrey Creep Catchers and Marie Bullon, at the time a colleague in Laforge鈥檚 controversial vigilante group.
A success for the group to be sure. Not only did Putt for this luring charge, of his lifetime of behaviour engaging underage boys in sexual activity came forward leading to .
But if one fires enough bullets in a crowd, eventually a bad guy gets hit.
The scattershot technique of Creep Catchers, the amateur and gang-style shaming attacks posted live online is coming under increasing criticism from experts in criminal justice and even from within the movement itself.
Marie Bullon was there at McDonald鈥檚 with Laforge and Putt, and even though she realized at that moment they had exactly what they were looking for, it still didn鈥檛 sit right.
鈥淗e was a big deal,鈥� Bullon said of Putt, adding that he was 鈥渁bsolutely nasty鈥� and that it was clear his actions were criminal.
鈥淏ut it was shocking to me the way Ryan acted. I can鈥檛 even watch that whole video. I went outside while it was going on.鈥�
Since the Putt incident there have been dozens of other Creep Catchers videos posted live online, often with mistaken identities, sometimes of individuals who are mentally challenged, and always shaming and bullying, even assaulting men who are at most alleged to have responded to entrapment by Laforge and his acolytes.
The basic methods of the so-called 鈥減edo hunters鈥� is simple. They create fake profiles of 18-year-olds on websites like Craigslist of Grindr, then when a man starts chatting with them, the bait is switched and the age becomes 15 or 14 or even 12. Then they arrange a meeting, confront the individual with live videos streamed online.
鈥淭here are a bunch of laws being broken.鈥�
That鈥檚 from Craig Jones, lawyer and law professor at Thompson Rivers University.
鈥淭his is entertainment-driven law enforcement by people who have no idea what the law is,鈥� Jones said in a recent interview. 鈥淭hey have no education in even a related field like psychology. They don鈥檛 even know what a pedophile is.鈥�
Bullon was involved in the Fraser Valley chapter of the Creep Catchers and she was there when Don Putt was busted for child luring. She is now one among many who have dared to question Laforge鈥檚 methods and who has been publicly 鈥渂lasted鈥� and shunned by Laforge.
Bullon still thinks there is something noble in this vigilantism, but she wants it done correctly. Bullon鈥檚 technique is to go online using the same bait-and-switch technique. She then pretends to be 12 or 13 years old giving the man an opportunity to walk away.
鈥淯ltimately that鈥檚 what we want them to do,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e want them to change their ways.鈥�
Where Laforge will pretend to be a 13-year-old girl and blatantly promise sexual acts to a man online, Bullon lets the men do the luring.
鈥淚 wait for them to say they want to meet me. I鈥檒l let them choose a place. I just follow along. I don鈥檛 lure anybody, I鈥檒l let them lure me.鈥�
Bullon does her online vigilantism under the moniker Block Guardians now. So why have you heard of Creep Catchers and not Block Guardians? Because she doesn鈥檛 use the entertainment-style shaming like Laforge.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 see them because they are not doing the online blasting,鈥� Jones said of Bullon and other splinter groups trying to do this work within the law. 鈥淚 more or less leave those people alone.鈥�
鈥淯ltimately we want these guys to get help and we do work with the police,鈥� Bullon says. 鈥淚 go home at the end of the night knowing that he lured me out, that he鈥檚 a predator.鈥�
Laforge and the Surrey Creep Catchers, on the other hand, are increasingly getting the wrong kind of attention from critics like Jones and Sean Smith, a social media educator, who created .
Laforge is in a pile of trouble, little of which he seems to recognize or understand. The to take videos down.
His response?
鈥淚 told them to go f鈥攌 themselves,鈥� Laforge said in an with the Surrey Now-Leader.
贬别鈥檚 with two counts of assault and one count of uttering threats related to his 鈥渟tings鈥� in April.
Then there are the lawsuits for defamation.
When asked to comment on this story Laforge did not respond directly but this reporter received a two-word message from the Surrey Creep Catchers via Facebook: 鈥淔鈥攌 off.鈥�
鈥� See Part Two in this series on the problem with Creep Catchers and more from lawyer Craig Jones next week.
- with files from the Surrey Now-Leader
