Show star: self-righteous Chris Hansen
NBC’s ‘To Catch a Predator’ sued over man who killed himself as police arrived | KOMO-TV – Seattle, Washington | Entertainment — Something like this was bound to happen. This creepy show, which is essentially institutionalized entrapment for the purposes of entertainment and humiliation, was bound to get more bold as time went on and as ratings went up.
Curiously there was a Law and Order episode sometime back where something like this happened and the producers were found guilty of murder by depraved indifference or something like that. These guys exhibit a lot of depraved indifference by showing up at some jokers home like this. Normally they let the “predator” (usually some pathetic and gullible cross-eyed loser thinking he is going to get lucky with some underage girl) show up at the sting site. Actually going to the guys house before he actually does anything overt may be an issue in the lawsuit.
In the “Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator” show, men accused of having explicit online chats with people they think are underage children go to a house to meet them, where TV cameras, host Chris Hansen and police await.
Louis William Conradt Jr., of Terrell, Texas, a Dallas suburb, was suspected of being one of those men, except he didn’t show up at the house. That didn’t stop the TV producers and police from showing up at his, though, and as officers knocked on his door and a camera crew waited in the street, Conradt shot and killed himself.
What do I think about all this? NBC and the other networks should be supporting and developing shows such as Americas Most Wanted which tries to get criminals off the street rather than try to create new criminals with this sort of exploitation of the feeble-minded. Hansen himself says this on his blog: “More often than not, when a potential predator shows up at one of our hidden camera houses he has no criminal history for sexual assault or soliciting a minor online for sex.”
So let’s see if we can make them criminals for ratings? This is beneficial to society? It’s sick.
found by Aric Mackey
I have come across this show multiple times as I flipped through channels. It makes me sick. I remember seeing like a 25 year old who was absolutely terrified and worried that his life would be ruined forever. I feel sorry for people who seek relations with 13 year old children, and at the same time I know they deserve punishment. However, I don’t believe one bit that they deserve public humiliation at the hands of NBC.
Don’t they (or didn’t they used to) have to sign a waiver/release for their footage to be aired? I could never understand why anybody would do that.
That said, in my view entrapment is repugnant and reprehensible, and I sincerely hope NBC and Chris Hansen get taken to the cleaners for it.
Further, I abhor the concept of “victimless crimes.”
I have a major problem with the methodology. Just because you were flirting online with a 13-year-old (who often isn’t really 13) doesn’t mean you’re trying to sleep with her. Likewise, just because you intend to doesn’t mean you’ll actually do it.
This has Minority Report written all over it…
New motto for the show: “We make pre-crime happen!”
This show was sick. There was zero chance any of the guys were going to get prosecuted. It was entrapment from day one. The networks worked hand in hand with police which totally undermines any notion of police objectivity. I never really understood what the charges were. A 13 year old girl flirts with guys and invites them into her house. Then, the cops jump the guy as he leaves the house.
I never knew what charge was filed. They didn’t have sex with the girl. I heard that they were charged with trespassing, which was crap. She invited them into home. One guy was on a public beach.
Then you have Chris Hanson spending a few minutes clearly trying to get the patsies to make self incriminating comments. Apparently, the district attorney tossed out all the charges because it was the defnitiion of entrapment.
WFAA of Dallas trashed this reporting technique.
See the link. http://www.tiny.cc/Gj5bl
It’s a prosecutor’s worst nightmare,” he said. “In fact, I’ve had this when I was a federal prosecutor. The last thing you want is the news media or reality TV shows to be involved in the prosecution of a case or the investigation of the case.”
And, “A letter from the assistant Collin County district attorney to Murphy police said they were in the law enforcement business, not show business.
“You’ve got problems from beginning to end,” Finn said. “This whole scenario is garbage-in-garbage-out, and here we sit with a pile of garbage.”
Murphy went ahead anyway with a sting they said they worked on for two months. However, News 8 learned that Murphy’s lead investigator, Snow Robertson, didn’t work for Murphy until one day before the sting began. That put more pressure on the group Perverted Justice, a group which NBC pays to conduct internet chats with alleged sexual predators.
The group’s methods have long been questioned.
Marsha Bartel, a former NBC producer, is suing NBC for $1 million after she was fired when she voiced concerns about To Catch a Predator’s ethics.
Her lawsuit alleged that Perverted Justice chats are “trolling operations” in which chatters “sometimes beg individuals to come to the sting locations” so they can be captured on camera.
“[NBC] unethically provides local law enforcement with video equipment and video tapes” in exchange for dramatically staged arrest video, the suit said.
I am so sick of this feminazi, male hating media. Chris Hanson is a mangina, and I am glad he is getting his ass sued ass off. He and Mike Nifong must be cousins.
You’re off-base John. These guys are pedophiles.
Do you really believe NBC turned these guys into criminals simply because it was their first offense? NBC didn’t turn these guys’ computers on, navigate them to a chat room, ask them to participate in lurid discussions with underage children.
If these were your kids being preyed upon you would be glad NBC “turned them into criminals” before your own children did.
I have no sympathy for any child predator but this isn’t entrapment. Entrapment is a specific legal defense in which law enforcement tries to trick you into committing a crime, not some lame ass TV show.
If isn’t a law enforcement agency it isn’t called entrapment.
No, I’m not a lawyer and this is my first post ever offering an opinion on a legal term so take it for what it’s worth.
Chris Hansen should be gang-raped by a group of under-age girls and then he should be prosecuted for having sex with minors.
If I ever see the faggot Chris Hansen on the street I’m gonna punch him across the face.
I agree this show is starting to stink.
I can just see the slippery slope of extending public humiliation to all sorts of petty crimes for the purposes entertainment – of course hiding under the safe umbrella of “catching criminals”. In this case, the slippery slope turned from building a spider’s web to becoming a hunt and gather spider. Good topic of debate.
In Cuba, the public watches over itself as a way to extend government control. The “oh but it’s a pedophile” nancies in here are too shallow to see the implications of a society taking law enforcement into their own hands.
On the Internet, nobody knows that you are a dog.
Or a policeman playing like a 13 year old.
Or a 50 yo man playing as a 16 yo girl, in the case of my wife’s ex.
The whole thing is not about justice or laws, it’s about entertainment. Entertainment that I can’t fscking stand.
As a person who was molested as a child and having to go through the last 40yrs with this horrible memory. Never being able to have a real relationship with another human of any kind. You will never know devastation, the loss, the fear. Why! What did I do but be a 10 yr child.
That was the last year of childhood for me it was taken away that summer afternoon! By a sick son of a bitch that should have his penis cut off!
Just as I was told by him: I’ll be gentle and it won’t hurt a bit. I’m really do this for your own good. But don’t tell anyone it’ll be our little secret!
Bravo Dateline!! These sick people shouldn’t be allowed a normal life either.
#11, god forbid that something like that would happen to my child, but if it did I would go about it in a different manner than the way it is normally carried out in society today. Instead of following protocol of demonizing the predator and having my kid suffer for the rest of his life I would not inform the police or tell anyone. I would explain to my kid that sometimes adults do things against someone’s wishes because of their own psychological sicknesses. I would explain that my kid had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the violator’s action only that chance works that way. I would teach him to forgive his attacker and explain that the body can take physical attacks– that the body is a gift from God and that it can heal itself. I would also teach my kid that the person that attacked him is not a monster but rather someone who has never taught him how to love people which means to respect someone else’s feelings. I would also show indifference to the attack. *I* would show no anger toward his attacker. *I* would act like the attack was nothing of big importance. I would explain that it is like a broken arm or broken leg. The body heals. I would explain to my kid to live his life and forgive. Then I would never bring it up again and act like it was a PAST EVENT because it was. The world today has made man psychologically weak. The best I can do as a father is to make my kid pyschologically strong. And the best way for that is to teach him to be unflappable.
If the Bilble-belt wasnt scared shitless because of a little flirting and bad language these kind of shows would run a pilot then get no more funding.
WORST setup I have ever seen!
Entrapment?—No, just good police work that the police won’t do. Entrapment is placing the idea of doing a crime into the mind of someone not predisposed to do it. Here we have a bunch of guys responding to posts from 13 year old girls, sending them pictures of their penises, and going to their homes with condoms and six-packs? Who of you would do this???? – – – I didn’t think so!
So, unless you are criminally insane yourself (John?), what you are really upset about is the obvious mental illness and patheticness (sic–pathos doesn’t work) of the criminals. THAT goes to treating mental illness as a crime which is rife in the GOUSA. THAT should be your target, not twisting your brain into thinking entrapment.
Saw a show last night on TV called Point of View about small town prisons. 50% of prison population is for non-violent crime. I assume most of that is drug related and a good chunk for the mentally ill since Regan shut down all the mental hospitals.
We get the society we have as a result of the rules we have in place. GOUSA and its calvinist roots===lets punish everybody and pretend we are doing them and society a good turn.
As I have traveled the world, I find the least attractive thing about the GOUSA is its anti-libertarian/authoritarian mind set. Truly self-defeating in so many ways. Enforced by half the attutudes on display here. Good job, John.
Here’s something that I never understood.
If some 40 year old dude goes into a chatroom with a “14 year old girl”, and the “14 year old girl” spends the majority of the convorsation talking about how much she wants the older dude to lay her, and to meet her at the house while her parents are gone, Where the hell is the “predator” part? The “14 year old girl” seems more like the predator to me.
Not saying that the 40 year old dude is not an odd individual for seeking pleasure from a 14 year old, but it seems like a whole bunch of those dudes on the show were just guilty of crappy judgement.
It reminds me of how much I abhor the whole statutory rape thing.
Shows like this are why non-Americans hate America.
15–So you would be tempted? – – -or stop posting???
But yes, that is one step towards entrapment compared with jumping in your car and driving 300miles. ((You do the math.))
In the few snippets I have seen, I haven’t seen the content of the kiddie postings. I doubt the kiddie comes on as you suggest, although it wouldn’t make a difference at all.
In the days of Napster, I was downloading “Rubber Ducky” by the Muppets and a 14 year old girl emailed me saying she liked my selection of music. We talked. I got on her hot list and we talked about once a week. Her father was a doctor and had little time for her. I told her that he was busy but that if she ever needed help, he would be there for her and that she should talk to her mother about it. I guess a case for entrapment might have been present if she didn’t live in Israel?
You folks need to dig a little deeper and see what these guys are actually writing in their chats. It’s not what I would call “flirting”. These guys are pedophiles..
#18, iHotAir,
It seems we agree again. These men are pedophiles and willingly have entered into an illegal act.
I do have a very hard time with the arrest. Why does it take a half dozen police with guns drawn to effect the arrest? Then they have to throw the perp on the ground in order to cuff him. These men are not resisting so there is no need to be violent towards them. My fear is the police will continue to have this idea that every arrest needs to exert as much police control as possible in order to glorify their role and personal power trip.
Here’s what gets me:
– it’s not illegal to have sexually explicit chats with a 45yr old man who’s pretending to be a14yr old girl
– it’s not illegal to have sex with an 18yr girl who looks like and is pretending to be a 14yr old girl
– Therefore, if Chris Hansen wasn’t there and the “predator” had ended up having sex with the “decoy,” he would not have done anything illegal.
I mean, if you steal what you think to be an expensive piece of jewelry and it turn out to be a cheap plastic decoy. Does that make you a jewel thief? Or just an idiot?
Picture this:
“Suspect” comes in wearing a coat. Chris Hanson begins interviewing the guy, asks him about showing up for his meeting with the “girl”. “Suspect” replies, “but I’m not here to meet the girl. I’m here for YOU”. Then the “Suspect” throws back his coat revealing…. a suicide vest! Yep, Al -Quaeda (spelling?) wants to blow up a news crew on national television! Guy starts saying “alla akbar! alla akbar”! then throws the switch taking out a good number of people.On television! I’m surprised no one’s thought of it.
These Dateline guys are sleeze. There can be NO JUSTICE when this sort of program is done in the name of ratings.
20—If both of your propositions were in fact explicitly illegal, would your position change?
21—That would make for good tv. What branch of NAMBLA do you head up?
22.
Im just wating for the episode where some guy knowingly falls for the trap in order to rape Chris Hanson.
I would Tivo/VHS/DVR/Youtube the fuck out of that footage!
23–Really? Why?
#5 According to an AP report posted on MSNBC about the Murphy Tx case…
“It is the first time in nine “Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator” stings across the country in the past year and a half that prosecutors did not pursue charges.”
So I guess you were wrong when you wrote, “There was zero chance any of the guys were going to get prosecuted.”
Sorry I forgot to link to the story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19486893/
24.
Because it would be hilarious, although it think the suicide bomber would have a much better impact on news media as a whole.
besides that, I think Hanson is a douche. If he had a completely different show, I would still think he was a douche. So Hanson getting pwned by some guy he is trying to criminalize on national TV = my enjoyment 😀
25.
That was an interesting read.
If was that mother I wouldn’t be too fond of officers jumping out of my neighbors bushes all day either 😀
Welcome to the Internet – Where men are men, women are men, and kids are cops.
[Duplicate post. – ed.]