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Family members of McKnight have since accused Doep and his vigilante group of targeting vulnerable people.

Along with the larger-picture issues of vigilante justice — a lack of due process, undermining the rule of law, putting people at unnecessary risk — Camp said there are practical issues that impact the ability of police to do their jobs.

“We can’t do anything when a vigilante group comes in and completely implodes or disrupts everything. Even if we wanted to go after this person that they just exposed, there’s no way,” Camp said. “In a practical sense, if someone has just been caught in a civilian sting, they’re not going to engage with an undercover operator online.”

He said he has seen instances when people being investigated by the ICE unit were approached by Creep Catchers. They then left the city and went on to commit crimes in other jurisdictions.

Added to that, when police arrest someone with mental health issues, they take that into account and it becomes part of the long-term, court-ordered plan to deal with them.

Camp said even if Creep Catchers methods were proper — which they are not — there are conflicts that would make co-operation with the group impossible.

“As we can see from analyzing their website, they’re a for-profit organization,” Camp said. “They’re in it for a number of reasons (and) one of them is commercial enterprise. We can’t be involved in anything like that.”

He said he wants to remind people if they have information about sexual predators, the way to get results is to inform police, either in-person or with a phone call to a station or anonymously to Crime Stoppers.

“If we did a press release every time we caught a person involved in child porn, we’d be doing a weekly press release, 52 times a year. And after a while it becomes a story lost,” Camp said.

“Globally, the police are actively involved in investigations involving people looking for sex with children. This goes on every day, 365 days a year.”

dlazzarino@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/SUNDaveLazz