CT vigilantes who target alleged child predators draw cheers, concern

Images from the POP Squad web site Images from the POP Squad web site Photo: PopSquad Buy photo Photo: PopSquad Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close CT vigilantes who target alleged child predators draw cheers, concern 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

The video shows a man stepping from the darkness of the night into a quiet house. The place is devoid of furniture, walls blank; nothing indicates is has been made a home.

The man believes he is there to have a sexual encounter with an underage boy. But there is no boy there.

Instead, the man is faced with a camera, wielded by a group that says it’s working to root out potential sexual predators in Connecticut.

Questioned, his soft voice echoes off the walls as he acknowledges why he is there.

The man, identified as a Quinnipiac University professor, is placed on leave from his position after the video is posted “pending an investigation,” according to a university spokesman. News reports followed soon after.

But law enforcement was not involved. Instead, the allegations were raised by POP (Prey on Predators) Squad, a Connecticut-based group that has conducted dozens of similar sting operations.

Disagreement abounds about whether the group’s work is ethical or appropriate.

On one hand, the group strives to “out” those who would prey on children. On the other, there are the perils of stepping around the legal system, encoded to represent society’s standards and ethics.

Molly Land, a professor at the University of Connecticut Law School , does not believe POP Squad has a legitimate claim to the power it wields.

In an interview, she noted the government is elected and sanctioned by the public; the proceedings of the judicial system are calibrated by learned people elected and appointed to the positions; they seek information and mete out sentences based on societal standards and expertise. They, as well as the legal process, can be held to account.

None of that is true of POP Squad.

“It’s hard to defend people who would come to that kind of a meeting, and I get that,” Land said of POP Squad’s targets. “But at the same time — who elected POP Squad to do this? Do they have the tools to make these kind of decisions about actions that can have really extraordinary and significant consequences for people’s lives? These are not things to be taken lightly.”

“POP Squad is judge, jury and executioner all in one. And, again, I don’t think what these alleged perpetrators may or may not have done is ethical either,” Land said. “But I think we are in dangerous territory for a group to take (this power) into their own hands in this way.”

Others see the POP Squad work as helpful.

Middletown resident Alan Bissonnette is one of many who have left supportive comments on POP Squad’s Facebook posts.

In an interview, he said he has watched every video posted by the group — he thinks the group is entertaining, in a good versus evil kind of way — and approves of what the squad does.

He noted those featured in the videos decided to travel to an expected sexual encounter with an underage person, providing enough evidence for the public accusation. He trusts POP Squad has done its due diligence, and if it hasn’t, the group could be sued.

He said POP Squad’s work helps inform people about potential dangers, allowing them to react accordingly to protect their children.

“It’s good to know who these people are,” said Bissonnette.

Daniel Feldman, who teaches Oversight & Investigation, Ethics & Accountability, and Administrative Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said public approval of groups like POP Squad is not new.

Feldman, who previously was a state legislator for nearly two decades and worked under Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, also helped write New York’s version of “Megan’s Law,” which requires the government to make information about sex offenders available to the public.

“The American public believes in the Bill of Rights unless they actually read it and understand it,” said Feldman. “Even decades ago, there were surveys that said, yes, of course I believe in free speech — except for communists.”

He said there is room for citizen action in the criminal justice system and that he believes what the group is doing, as described, is legal.

But he questioned the group’s capacity to do it, as members are are not trained law enforcement, run the risk of impersonating police — a crime — and may well lack the nuance to make appropriate decisions in close, gray-area cases.

“If they were to alter their behaviors so that all they were doing was either making a perfectly lawful citizen’s arrest when there is a... serious crime in progress or alerting the police of evidence of suspicious activity, that’s fine — they could be encouraged to do that,” said Feldman. “But they’ve clearly gone beyond those measures.”

Setting it up

According to police reports for cases from Torrington and Bristol, the founder of the group, Shane Erdmann, impersonates minors on social media and sets up encounters with potential sexual predators, confronts and interviews them, then posts videos of the encounter, at times with transcripts of chats and text messages.

Erdmann, who also goes by the pseudonym “Incognito,” did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

He told FOX 61 in 2017 that he believed not enough is done to catch child predators — Bissonnette said the same — and told NBC News in January that “(t)here’s two types of people who don’t like POPSquad: We either caught you or you know somebody that we caught.”

Some of the group’s videos have prompted police investigations and criminal charges in the past. This was the case for Torrington resident Cole Sutton and, as the Bristol Press reported, Southington resident Keith Dubin.

Sutton, originally arrested and charged by Torrington police with use of a computer to entice a minor into sexual activity and conspiracy to commit second-degree sexual assault, pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a minor in December 2017. He received a suspended five-year sentence and a decade of probation.

Torrington police investigated a report that Sutton communicated with a person he thought was a 15-year-old boy he met on a social media site, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The two communicated through text messages and social media, arranging to meet for a sexual encounter, police said. The 15-year-old boy turned out to be an adult from Pop Squad, who video-recorded meeting Sutton after the appointment was arranged and later cooperated with police, according to the affidavit.

Dubin, already on the state’s sexual offender list, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to risk of injury to a minor, according to the Bristol Press. A charge of possession of child pornography was not prosecuted as part of the plea deal.

According to the Press, Dubin was accused of contacting a POP Squad member posing as a 14-year-old boy, turning the conversation to sexual topics. He eventually attempted to set up a meeting with the boy, who turned out to be a POP Squad representative.

Police alleged that “Dubin implied the encounter between he and who he thought was a teenager would be sexual in nature based on the conversations the two had had,” according to the Press.

But Sutton and Dubin are exceptions to the rule. On its website, POP Squad indicates the people featured in 14 of the group’s 130-plus videos have been arrested. In some cases, the charges did not stem from POP Squad’s activities, according to NBC News.

Erdmann is familiar with the legal process. He pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell in January 2016, receiving a suspended sentence and three years of probation.

No failsafe

Land warned about the potential dangers of mob justice.

“This is a super-hard topic,” said Land. “The conduct that they’re trying to get at, of course, no one wants. It’s hard to stand up for people who you think have done really reprehensible things. But there’s a reason why we have due process; there’s a reason why we have rule of law — and it’s because mob justice can make mistakes. It can be misleading; it can lead to unintended harms and consequences.”

Torrington resident Alain Malcolm committed suicide in October 2018, shortly after he was featured in one of the group’s videos.

The cause of death was determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to Torrington police Lt. Bart Barown III. Barown said city police are still investigating the case.

After Malcolm took his own life, POP Squad took down the video that featured him and stated this on Facebook:

“POP Squad recognizes that the innocents that are hurt by predators are not just their direct victims, but often include their families, friends, co-workers, and many others in their lives. It will be natural to feel sad if something happens to a predator, but remember. He is not the innocent. He is not a victim,” the group said. “He tried to create a victim. This catch was no different than all the others before it and his actions are his and his alone. We will continue our work without hesitation and appreciate your support.”

John DeCarlo, a former Branford police chief and a professor at the University of New Haven, said he is “agnostic” when it comes to vigilante groups and does not wish to condone the actions of child predators but noted the lack of a “failsafe” system in place.

He said he is concerned about the lack of safeguards surrounding the work of groups such as POP Squad, pointing to the virtues and protections of the American legal system.

DeCarlo noted that in order to get a warrant for someone’s arrest, police must prove there is probable cause for charges to be levied against them. Once arrested, the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The legal system protects people from being blackballed by false allegations or mistakes by law enforcement, he said.

“It’s a slippery slope,” DeCarlo said. “When we remove Constitutional protections and short-circuit the system, we lose something of living in a democracy.”

Land said social media exacerbates the dangers of mob justice to an extent.

Facebook posts that share more polarizing or extreme content often get more views, she said, which allows the company to charge more for advertising. People have their expectations for reality shaped by repeated exposure to such content.

“It can distort our view of the world if we are constantly inundated by the most extreme kinds of interactions, the most extreme kinds of accusations,” said Land.

Land said Facebook has grown to the point that it has to weigh protecting free speech as an ideal against protecting its community and, potentially, those featured in the videos, who could be harmed as a result.

Facebook has taken down posts and, in at least one case, shut down a group, for people doing similar things to POP Squad around the country, according to NBC News.

“Oftentimes, that is the tricky thing for them — they want to try to allow as much speech as is comfortable and is desired by their users, but they don’t want to get too far,” Land said. “And how do you strike that balance on a worldwide basis?”

POP Squad does not “condone or endorse any harm coming to” the people in the videos, it says on its website.

“Share the videos, share the posts, help us continue doing what we do, we urge you to not assault them or their property,” said the group. “WE SHARE YOUR DISGUST but violence won’t help! It’ll just let the haters have something to pick apart at!”

Quinnipiac declined to offer an update on the professor’s status, saying that it was a personnel matter. He did not appear in the state judicial database as of Thursday afternoon.

It is unclear whether he is under investigation by police. There is no location for the home listed in the POP Squad video. John Cappiello, acting police chief in Hamden, said the incident reportedly took place in Bristol, and the department thus does not have jurisdiction. Bristol police did not return a call seeking comment.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com