Authorities in Massachusetts alleged that six college students lured an active duty service member they falsely accused of being a sexual predator to their campus, where he was attacked and chased by over two dozen people.
According to a statement of facts in the case, one of the accused students told police that the plot was based on To Catch a Predator, a cancelled NBC show that, over the course of its three seasons, sought to catch adults trying to prey on children by using undercover cameras and decoys that looked like underage dates.
According to the facts document, 19-year-old student Easton Randall states that “catch a predator” is a popular trend on TikTok right now.
Last month, authorities in Mount Prospect, northwest of Chicago, prosecuted eleven Illinois teenagers in a similar incident that they connected to a social media trend that went global.
The city’s police department did not elaborate on the trend in a statement at the time, but police chief Michael Eterno urged parents to use these incidents as a chance to discuss with their adolescent children the dangers of actively following the kinds of trends they see on social media.
The statement claims that there was no proof at all that the man alleged by the students of being a predator had been having sex with a minor at Assumption University, a private Catholic university in Worcester where the six individuals implicated in the scheme are students.
According to the university police sergeant who wrote the statement, he was nevertheless pursued by what the statement characterizes as a mob of 25 to 30 people, some of whom recorded the pursuit, and caught up in a conspiracy orchestrated by a group of six that includes accusations of systemic abuse, false imprisonment, physical assault and battery, and possible character assassination.
Charged with kidnapping, conspiracy
The statement identifies one of the children as a minor, and the criminal complaint that was filed last month does not list their allegations. According to the lawsuit, Randall and the other five pupils were accused of conspiracy and kidnapping.
Two more pupils were charged with further offenses. 18-year-old Kelsy Brainard was accused of intimidation. The charges against 18-year-old Kevin Carroll were assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
Carroll’s and another defendant’s attorneys did not return messages. Randall’s relative declined to speak. Neither a Facebook message sent to a profile with Brainard’s name nor a message left for another defendant on a phone number identified as a relative were returned.
Greg Weiner, president of Assumption University, stated in a statement that the actions detailed in the court document are disgusting and incompatible with the university’s goals and principles. We anticipate that our students will always use good judgment and respect the values of accountability, respect, and morality that characterize our community.
According to Weiner, the school’s public safety department looked into the claims and filed criminal charges after the incident was reported.
“The victim is an active-duty military service member, which makes this situation especially sobering,” he stated. His service serves as a reminder of the costs incurred by those who protect our liberties, such as the chance to attend college.
The victim’s father, who was contacted via phone, told NBC News that his son is 22 years old. He stated that it seems like officials are carrying out their duties and refused to specify the branch of the military his kid is in.
He stated, “These kids seem to have hung themselves with their own words, and they’re doing their due diligence.”
Home to attend a funeral
The next day after the Oct. 1, 2024 incident, Brainard told university administrators that a creepy Tinder app contact had visited campus to meet a 17-year-old female, according to the statement of facts. According to the statement, she texted her friend Randall, who reportedly chased the individual away.
Brainard reaffirmed this assertion in a follow-up interview with campus police, claiming that she had been the target of unwelcome contact, according to the statement.
The Worcester Police Department later linked the service member to campus administrators, who gave a radically different version of events.
According to the statement, he informed campus police that he had been home to attend his grandmother’s funeral and that he had started messaging someone on Tinder because he simply wanted to be among joyful people.
According to the statement, she invited him to meet at a college alumni hall, and he informed officers that he and Brainard intended to connect.
Attacked by a mob
According to the statement, he had only been in the building for a few minutes when a group of individuals suddenly appeared and began accusing him of being a pedophile and said that he had a thing for females who were seventeen years old.
According to the statement, he was grabbed and prevented from leaving, thus he was unable to do so. According to the subject, he managed to escape and fled up the stairs while being pursued by a group of at least twenty-five persons.
According to the statement, he told police that he was chased to his car, hit in the head, and had the door slammed on him. According to the statement, he called the police after managing to escape the premises.
The victim’s story was validated by an examination of the campus security footage mentioned in the statement. The statement claims that after one of the alleged attackers was caught slamming the man’s car door on his head, the students were seen on camera berating the victim as a sexual predator, chasing him, and high-fiving one another a short while later.
According to the statement, a check of Tinder messages revealed that the military member thought he was meeting an 18-year-old. According to her profile, the woman was eighteen. According to the statement, Brainard was unable to respond when police asked her where the tip regarding an underage female originated.
Call police or kick their ass
Randall said officials that six students had devised a plan to lure Brainard to campus after discovering he was messaging the victim.
In reference to the host of To Catch a Predator, he claimed that it was similar to the Chris Hansen videos in which you catch a predator and either contact the police or kick their ass.
The program, which ran from 2004 to 2007, attempted to entice alleged predators to homes where Hansen would confront them by using hidden cameras and people pretending to be children in online chat forums. Violence was neither encouraged nor featured in the program.
In 2007, the family of a Texas prosecutor who was the focus of one of the show’s investigations filed a $105 million lawsuit against the network after he committed suicide.The following year, NBC announced that the issue had been concluded amicably and reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum.
According to the statement, Randall told campus police that he and a few others offered advice on what Brainard should include in her communications to the service man. The statement claims that after enticing him to the school, the organization used an alumni group chat to rally other college students, a move that sparked a furious reaction from the dozens of people that attended the event.
Randall then admitted to officials that things had gotten out of control and turned ugly, according to the statement.
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