How to Catch a Pretitor Funny
Advertisement
- Ended
- MSNBC
- 2004-11-11T05:00:00Z
- 45m
- 20h (20 episodes)
- United States
- English
- Documentary
Advertisement
To Catch a Predator was an American news exposé series that featured hidden camera investigations by the television newsmagazine program Dateline NBC. It was devoted to impersonating underage people (generally ages 12–15) and detaining male adults who contacted them over the Internet for sexual liaisons. People were lured to meet with a decoy under the pretense of sexual contact and then confronted.
Advertisement
Advertisement
35 episodes
The first in the series aired in November 2004 as a Dateline NBC segment called Dangerous Web. The operation was set up in a home in Long Island, NY, to which 18 men came over two-and-a-half days after making an appointment for sex with a minor. One of the men in the investigation was a New York City firefighter, who was later fired by the FDNY.
The sequel to the first story was an hour-long special airing in November 2005. The operation was located in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and saw 19 men arrive over three days. Among the men caught were David Kaye, a rabbi, and Steven Bennof, an elementary school teacher, both of whom lost their jobs after taping.
The third installment of the series was a two hour special aired in February 2006. The operation was located in Riverside, California, and was the first done in cooperation with local law enforcement officials. During this sting, 50 men were arrested over three days and charged with felonies—so many that three arrived almost simultaneously, and law enforcement, at one point, ran out of personnel. One other person arrested was charged with a misdemeanor. The men arrested included a criminal investigator working for the Department of Homeland Security who was later fired and, for the first time, two men who claimed to have seen previous Dateline investigations of online sexual predators.
The fourth investigation aired in two one-hour-long parts during April and May 2006 as the first half of a month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Greenville, Ohio. The small-town location of the undercover house meant that potential predators from the larger surrounding cities of Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cincinnati had to drive upwards of an hour and a half to reach the operation. Among the men caught were one who had been slated to start a prison sentence for a different charge of solicitation in four days and a 6th grade school teacher who had also been chatting with an Indiana police officer posing as a teenage girl. Three Perverted-Justice members were temporarily deputized for the length of the operation. It was also the first Dateline investigation in which Perverted-Justice was paid a consulting fee. All arrests resulted in convictions.
As with the Ohio investigation, the fifth investigation was aired in two one-hour-long parts in May 2006, forming the second half of the month-long series of To Catch a Predator specials. The operation was based in Fort Myers, Florida and saw 24 men arrested in three days. Among the more notable moments in the investigation was the arrest of a man who had brought along his five-year-old son to the house, creating a challenge for arresting officers as well as Hansen who did not want to traumatize the boy. Hansen told him immediately that he was on Dateline without attempting to interview him, and police had the difficult task of arresting the father and removing the child without exposing him to the arrest. One man, upon seeing Hansen, said that he knew that he was walking into a setup because of the way that the decoy was talking online, but came anyway "to test it." Another man had asked a decoy posing as a 14-year-old if she was willing to have oral sex with a cat and perform sex acts involving Cool Whip. She replied that she would do so on the condition that he would strip naked after entering the house. He did so and was immediately confronted by Hansen. He was the second featured predator to strip naked in the house to date. Like the first one, Hansen gave him a towel to cover himself with. Hansen also had to go look for a bottle of water for the man when he asked for one in which case Hansen made one of his typical humorous comments: "running around naked probably dried you up." Another man arrived at almost 4am, but refused to enter the house, trying to talk the girl into getting in his car with him. After pleading with her for over 30 minutes, he gave up and walked to his car where he was arrested. Another man confessed that he was "guilty of whatever's there" (referring to the transcript) and, when asked what should happen to him by Hansen, said that he should receive the death penalty. Another duped his sister into driving him to the sting house and waiting for him in the car while he intended to have sex with a 14-year-old girl. This is the individual who pulled his shirt over his head and said, "Nothing funny is going on here, dog."
In August 2006, Perverted-Justice announced that the sheriff's department in Harris County, Georgia had arrested 20 men over four-and-a-half days in another sting operation. The investigation aired on Dateline NBC in two parts on September 13 and September 22, and showed a growing awareness of the television series among potential predators; Dateline itself was referenced by name several times. Notable arrests included a military staff sergeant who on his knees pleaded with Hansen "not to ruin my life", a devout Christian man whose MySpace page claimed "Jesus Rocks" and that God was his hero, and one man who had said that he had seen the show "about three times on TV already", and in another case a man who confessed that "he has interest in younger girls, It has just been a fantasy of mine" and also that the "cleanest best pleasure" would be to have sex with a 13-year-old girl. Several months later, that man was rearrested when he exposed himself to a young girl at a public pool. Shortly after the first half of this investigation aired, the Georgia Governor's office announced a new Child Safety Initiative which would triple the number of special agents in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation dedicated to catching Internet predators and double the number of forensic computer specialists dedicated to helping prosecute computer crimes.
From August 25 to August 27, Perverted-Justice and Dateline worked with law enforcement in Petaluma, California to arrest 29 men in three days. One suspect was later released due to lack of evidence. The resulting investigation aired on Dateline NBC on September 29 and October 6. The confrontations took place in the backyard, the first time they were taped outdoors. All of the previous interviews took place in a kitchen or living room. Petaluma was the hometown of kidnap and murder victim Polly Klaas, and was also a former home of John Mark Karr, who made a false confession to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. The last segment of the Petaluma investigation focused in part on the Mark Foley scandal, which broke just days before the investigation went to air. Several political cartoons published in the wake of the scandal explicitly referenced To Catch a Predator by name. Given the proximity of the sting house to Silicon Valley, the investigation saw several computer engineers arrested, one of whom declared to the police that he was a well-respected man in society with a Ph.D. in computer engineering. Among the more notable arrests was that of a medical doctor who was the vice-president of a major cancer research corporation. Another claimed to be an active-duty Marine Corps sniper who, in his chat, said: "I carry a gun everywhere I go". The individual was actually a member of the Marine Corps infantry, and not a sniper. Police intervened immediately before any confrontation with Hansen and found a shotgun in the individual's truck. This segment resulted in 26 convictions. In January 2010, Lt. Matthew Stapleton of the Petaluma Police Department credited the sting operation with scaring potential predators away from Petaluma. Referring to later decoy operations by local police, Stapleton said, "As soon as they found out that we were from the Petaluma area, they completely cut off communication with us."
In September 2006, Perverted-Justice and Dateline once again worked with law enforcement in California, this time in Long Beach, to arrest 38 men over three days. The Long Beach investigation featured a man who had previously been encountered in the Riverside operation nearly a year earlier, a post-production video editor for Nickelodeon, a software engineer who worked for the United States Department of Defense, and a man soliciting a decoy posing as an 11-year-old (Dateline's youngest fictitious age for a decoy to date). This installment also featured a man who met his decoy at a public park after refusing to meet her at the house. This man had brought the decoy an MP4 player to give her after they had sex and got pulled over for speeding on the way to the meeting. Some predators were ushered out through the back door when it appeared that another predator was on his way to the house, in order to avoid tipping off the next visitor. During some of the encounters in Long Beach, there appeared to be security breaches involving the decoy playing the part of the young teen: one predator was allowed to shake her hand and lean in to kiss her before Hansen walked in, and another was allowed to hug the decoy before being confronted by Hansen. Typically, the decoy is instructed not to have any physical contact with predators, and Hansen usually walks right in when they make a sudden move or request any physical contact such as a hug or a kiss. During this investigation, the presence of the Dateline sting operation in town was leaked online through a Craigslist internet posting. Nonetheless, 32 convictions resulted from this segment, which aired on January 30 and February 6, 2007.
In November 2006, Perverted-Justice announced that another To Catch a Predator sting had been conducted with law enforcement in Murphy, Texas. There were 25 men who arrived at the filming location over four days, with law enforcement investigating additional suspects. The predators included a former church music director and a former police officer in his 60s. Most notably, these additional suspects, who conducted chats but did not arrive at the undercover house, included Kaufman County assistant district attorney Louis W. Conradt Jr., who shot and killed himself on November 5, 2006 at his home when police attempted to serve him with a search warrant. An NBC camera crew was waiting outside the house to film the scene when the fatal shot was fired. His estate, managed by his sister Patricia Conradt, filed suit against Dateline for US$105 million. The case was eventually settled out of court.
In December 2006, Perverted-Justice worked with the police department in Flagler Beach, Florida to arrest 21 men over four days, and the sting was filmed again by Dateline. Aware that potential predators might be reluctant to show up at a house primarily due to repeated Dateline investigations, the crew set up a second location at the beach directly across the street from the house. This second location was also rigged with cameras and microphones and had police hiding in a bunker below the deck. Some of the men arrested included a retired truck driver who claimed that he lied during his chat log about wanting to have sex with the underage girl because he is no longer able to achieve an erection, a Taekwondo instructor who masturbated on webcam for the decoy with whom he chatted, and a sheriff's deputy from Alabama who was arrested in a vehicle containing an arsenal of weapons. In one case, two potential predators arrived within five minutes of each other, resulting in Hansen conducting the first dual interview of predators who had each made separate appointments for sex. This investigation aired on February 27 and March 6, 2007, and resulted in 15 convictions.
On October 22, 2007, the Warren County District Attorney's Office announced that 29 men were arrested in an internet child sex sting conducted by local police in conjunction with Perverted Justice and Dateline NBC. Footage of this sting operation aired in an installment of the To Catch a Predator series on December 28, 2007. This is the twelfth investigation covered by Dateline and host Chris Hansen since the series began in 2004. Perverted Justice partnered with the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation as well as the Attorney General's office in three separate sting operations in three cities in Kentucky, but Dateline NBC was only involved in the Bowling Green portion of the operation. The female decoy used by Dateline in this operation was the same decoy they had used in the New Jersey operation though her hairstyle was different in order to avoid the possibility of being recognized by one of the predators who had watched the New Jersey investigation. Only seven men showed up to the house during Dateline's portion of the investigation, a sharp decline from previous Dateline investigations. One man arrested claimed to be a police officer in Indiana, although he was only a cadet and was fired before he graduated from the police academy. Kentucky police attempted to taser him when he ran, screaming, back into the house as police confronted him. Another arrestee was a man with cerebral palsy who walked with a cane and admitted to chatting inappropriately with underage girls before. All men arrested face 5–10 years in prison if convicted.
The first in the series aired in November 2004 as a Dateline NBC segment called Dangerous Web. The operation was set up in a home in Long Island, NY, to which 18 men came over two-and-a-half days after making an appointment for sex with a minor. One of the men in the investigation was a New York City firefighter, who was later fired by the FDNY.
Chris Hansen's report on the dangers of Internet chat rooms for kids includes a hidden-camera investigation and suggestions on how to protect children from online predators.
Chris Hansen offers a second update to his investigation into online predators and the hazards of Internet chat rooms for children.
Chris Hansen travels to Ohio and Florida to file the first in a new series of hidden-camera reports on alleged online sexual predators as part of the ongoing "To Catch a Predator" series.
Chris Hansen's investigation into alleged Internet predators continues.
Correspondent Chris Hansen's "To Catch a Predator" report on Florida raps up.
Chris Hansen journeys to Harris County, Ga., to investigate alleged Internet predators.
Chris Hansen presents the second part of his hidden-camera report on alleged Internet predators. His investigation is based in Harris County, Ga.
Chris Hansen journeys to Petaluma, Cal., to continue his hidden-camera investigation into alleged Internet predators.
Chris Hansen's hidden-camera investigation into alleged Internet predators continues in Petaluma, Cal.
Chris Hansen reports on alleged Internet predators in Long Beach, Cal., in Part 1 of his latest "To Catch a Predator" series.
Chris Hansen presents Part 2 of his hidden-camera report on alleged Internet predators in Long Beach, Cal.
Chris Hansen presents a hidden-camera report on alleged Internet predators based in Murphy, Texas.
The conclusion of correspondent Chris Hansen's two-part investigation into alleged Internet predators based in Murphy, Texas.
Chris Hansen investigates alleged Internet predators in a hidden-camera report from Flagler Beach, Fla.
The conclusion of Chris Hansen's two-part investigation into alleged Internet predators based in Flagler Beach, Fla.
Chris Hansen investigates alleged Internet predators in a hidden-camera report from Ocean County, N.J.
The conclusion of Chris Hansen's investigation of alleged Internet predators in Ocean County, N.J.
Chris Hansen corners alleged Internet stalkers in Bowling Green, Ky., in the 12th edition of "To Catch a Predator.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Source: https://trakt.tv/shows/to-catch-a-predator/seasons/all
0 Response to "How to Catch a Pretitor Funny"
Post a Comment