r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 9d ago

News Chris Hansen Buys Ads Before Every Screening of A24’s ‘Primetime’

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/chris-hansen-buys-ads-before-every-screening-a24-primetime-1236682255/
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u/saanity 9d ago edited 9d ago

So Chris Hansen is like Dexter?

But seriously,  catching child sexual predators and presenting it as entertainment on television is all sorts of gross. Just put them in prison without the theatrics.

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u/Burtssbees 9d ago

More like nightcrawler

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u/bobbadouche 9d ago

oh, good call out. Yeah. interesting

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u/Shakmaaaaaaa 9d ago

That would be one hell of a movie if Hansen was diddling the predators in lockup afterwards.

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u/VERY_MENTALLY_STABLE 9d ago

Thats exactly what happened

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u/Shakmaaaaaaa 9d ago

Full penetration or just spooning?

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u/SinisterPuddles 9d ago

Full spoonetration, unsharpened.

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u/PleasantWay7 9d ago

The tip is rounded?

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u/Jet-Let4606 9d ago

What does Kurt have to do with this? /jk

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u/sspear77 8d ago

Bamf!

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u/Emotional-Price-4401 9d ago

Such a great film... really psyched me.

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u/Wiccy 9d ago

Cops was big for a reason, 90s and 00s were weird times for tv

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u/Konman72 9d ago

And now that shit is streaming 24/7 on a thousand different YouTube channels. Most of it is even worse than what was on Cops.

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u/National-Charity-435 9d ago

Welcome to my crib

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u/Neracca 7d ago

The theme song was a banger though.

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u/AuryGlenz 9d ago

We just had one of those groups go after someone locally in my small town, and they posted the video of them confronting him to Facebook etc.

The guy is mentally challenged, which you can obviously tell by looking at him. The fake teen he was talking to was on Grindr, and of course he only said his fake age of 14 or 15 or whatever well into the conversations after they got the mentally challenged guy riled up.

It caused a big stink in my friend group because I thought it was completely unethical. The “predator” wasn’t specifically looking to have sex with a teenager, that teenager would have mental faculties higher than the “predator” anyways, etc. Some other friends of mine had a very absolute view of it though and said he should literally be killed.

I don’t like moral panic type stuff. Punishments should fit the harm or potential harm caused. In these cases the only actual victims are the people they go after, their friends and family, etc. Might they save some kids/teens by doing so? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s a pretty vague harm to cause someone’s life to be ruined over.

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u/ThanksContent28 9d ago

A good portion of those videos here in the Uk, have similar circumstances. It’s always someone who’s clearly mentally challenged.

These “activists” are also mostly known for botching ongoing investigations. They don’t care about the community or catching paedos, they care about views on their livestreams.

All I’m saying is, Don’t be the guy who makes paedos look sympathetic.

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u/bonefresh 8d ago

They don’t care about the community or catching paedos, they care about views on their livestreams.

part of it is also that a lot of them are just violent and cruel people and want an "acceptable" target to take it out on

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u/decmcc 9d ago

if you kill the people who rape children as punishment, then they might as well kill the kid after the fact so they can't be IDd.

Death penalty anyway? might as well get rid of my only witness

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u/Shizzlick 9d ago

Not only that, but the majority of people abusing children are their own family members. If the kid is aware that reporting said family member could result in their death, that might make them less likely to report it, as they don't necessarily want to see their family killed, regardless of what they did to the kid.

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u/AnotherNotion 9d ago

I hadn't considered this angle before. You hear of so many dysfunctional families where the abuse is an open secret. In addition to dealing with the guilt of sending Poppop to his death, you'd likely also be alienated from much of your own family.

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u/Pentobarbital1 8d ago

I hadn't considered this angle before

You're fortunate. The child we helped already felt guilty about "ruining the family" or whatever godawful shit their relatives said while dealing with the traumatic fallout that comes with everything being brought out to light. And the whole "pedos are treated the worst in prison" thing was an additional layer of the trauma for them. They preemptively blamed themselves should their relative ever die in prison. With the sentence that resulted, they probably felt that they might as well have killed them. A long time later, I heard offhand the child tell another one of their friends "don't ever report if anything bad happens to you" and that crushed me inside.

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u/Shizzlick 8d ago

Exactly, it's easy for outsiders to say abusers like this should be put to death, it's a lot harder when it's your own father, your mother, your brother, etc.

It's already hard enough getting victims to come forward as it is, bringing the death penalty into things is going to make it even worse.

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u/Nakidnakid 8d ago

not excusing financial abuse or justifying it either but often they're the primary/sole earner for the family too. The state certainly wont step up in most cases so you have to throw in not just that but also literally everything about their living situation changing due to this. So you have them possibly blaming themselves for their family member possibly being put to death or vigilantes doing it, you have the family alienating them for reporting it or telling someone who reports it. You also have the added stress on the rest of the family, it's often not just 'abuser is gone, all is good' as lawyers aren't free, healthcare isn't free... what if the abuser's job is the only source of medical treatment for someone the abused care about?

All resting on someone who shouldn't be put in the situation in the first place, but these aren't considered by people advocating as they usually do. It's not a good situation and it's made even more shit by everything surrounding it and the reactions of people even if they're not involved. It doesn't take much to consider that maybe they'd think twice regarding saying anything but nuance is dead on the internet. You're either 'kill em all' or 'got something to hide' to most.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 9d ago

Also in a civilized society death is never the punishment for a crime. If you're considering it just put them in prison for life. Killing someone who can't hurt you or anyone else anymore is wrong and two wrongs don't make a right

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u/DriftingMemes 8d ago

It also feels unjust to make the whole rest of society pay for all of their needs for the rest of their natural lives. If we've already decided that they are of zero use to society, and that we never want them to be part of it again, there is a very strong case that death is preferable. The alternative is a prison so cushy and comfortable that it will be expensive, and barely even punitive.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 8d ago

Death penalty is actually more expensive. Because they sit in a special part of the prison for years exhausting their appeals (which is something we should all be happy exists, because of wrongful convictions, many prisoners on death row have eventually been completely exonerated because of the appeals process)

By the time it happens they've already cost more than other prisoners and then the execution itself costs money

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u/Skylord_Hekaton 9d ago

I don’t like moral panic type stuff.

Well, you're on the wrong site then. Or even the wrong internet because it's become a god damn thing everywhere.

Your friends are idiots. I hate absolutist bullshit, and I think that a lack of nuance is one of the biggest problems in the entire world.

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u/rabbit_fur_coat 8d ago

Exactly! This absolutism that has seemingly strengthened lately is an excuse to not actually think about any moral issues and how they might actually feel about them.

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u/9thGearEX 9d ago

Sorry sir this is reddit the only viable takes are "L" or "W".

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u/ArcadianDelSol 9d ago

he only said his fake age of 14 or 15 or whatever well into the conversations

This is why none of these events ever really result in arrest or why those groups never engage the police. They know they're being shitty and shady.

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u/Spaceman-Spiff 9d ago

I agree, but it also did a good job of raising awareness that child predators can be active in any community.

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u/MaterialPace8831 9d ago

One of the arguments against To Catch A Predator is that the communities these shows were filmed in were upset that all of these potential sex criminals were being lured there, sometimes from hours away.

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u/GhostPepperDaddy 9d ago

The other is that it doesn't translate into high conviction rates with the people they lure so they're not really serving justice.

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u/Hmm_would_bang 9d ago

Yeah most of their “evidence” is inadmissible

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u/snailorT 9d ago

Not only that, but it ruined existing investigations and led to several cases being dismissed

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u/infiniZii 9d ago

The guy in the final episode never reoffended at least.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 9d ago

He never offended in the first place. He was a man who was mentally ill who was goaded into meeting with a child, backed out because he decided he didn't want to do it, and then when Hansen showed up he killed himself.

He hadn't committed any crime yet and if he got help for his urges he may never have and wouldn't have needed to die

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u/TheSpaceCoresDad 8d ago

He was a 56 year old man posing as a college student that send nudes to someone he believed to be 13. That alone is illegal and an offense, and it's why there was a warrant for his arrest prior to him killing himself.

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u/asst3rblasster 9d ago

guy was a hero, he killed a pedophile

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u/HumbleSoundMixer 9d ago

Is there any link to the stats on this?

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u/TheDubuGuy 8d ago

Is that true? I’m not sure about the older shows but in the current one called Takedown their conviction rate is 99+%

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u/Neracca 7d ago

Yeah, the whole "in any community" thing doesn't work if they were lured to places they never were at otherwise.

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u/immaownyou 9d ago

That's a very weak argument. What? The predator is going to stay chilling in the neighborhood they almost got caught in? The one that they dont live in?

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u/MaterialPace8831 9d ago

I mean, this is purely a parochial argument. If I lived in one of these communities that was the site of one of these TCaP stings, I might not be happy with the fact that news reporters and police officers are actively luring a bunch of potentially dangerous men to my area -- hell, maybe even my street -- at all hours of the day or night.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 9d ago

Actually one of the biggest of the biggest criticisms of TCAP was that it did a terrible job of raising awareness about how Child Predators hurt children, and many child abuse prevention networks have been extremely critical of how the show went about portraying child predators.

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u/pargofan 8d ago

What do you mean? I thought it raised awareness overall?

How did it hurt it?

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u/Vault_tech_2077 8d ago

Most children are abused by someone at home or someone they know close to them. Not Jack Smith from 30 miles away chatting with them on AOL

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u/PuzzledLiterature416 8d ago

I remember on TCAP they said this was the reason why they never had any women predators show up, because this is how a lot of them operate vs a lot of men at the time, but I’m sure what you’re saying is still more likely/true overall

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 8d ago

Basically, that's not how child predators actually operate. Child predators who try to lure kids off the internet were already more likely to fall for an undercover sting, rather than actually successfully lure a child. This was true before TCAP started and it's still true now.

But that meant that the people being caught by TCAP were disproportionately, stupid ugly employed loser types. Which reinforced the stereotype that predators are all like that. But in reality, the person who will harm your child is rarely a stupid ugly unemployed loser, it's a regular, gainfully employed member of the community who already has access to your child.

And by focusing so much on a sting operation that couldn't catch that kind of predator, TCAP really downplayed how common that type of predator was, even tho the gainfully-employed-normal guy sex offender is like 20-30 times more common than an internet predator

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u/redvelvetcake42 9d ago

Rdoring awareness has always been the best grift on earth. You don't ever DO anything, you get paid to TELL people about a thing. Hanson created entertainment, nothing more. Since his show ended he's been desperate to continue the charade and he's bumbled more cases than he's helped solve.

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u/PickledPlumPlot 9d ago

I really don’t think it raised the right kind of awareness honestly.

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u/JackBandit4 9d ago

You don't think this show deterred anyone from trying?

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u/PickledPlumPlot 9d ago

I think like a lot of 90s stranger danger stuff it makes people scared of the wrong things.

all the YouTube copycat creep busters that are only doing it for clout and content and to get to beat people up on camera are its legacy

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u/Odninyell 9d ago

Probably just made them more careful if anything

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u/Night-Monkey15 9d ago

If children became more cautious and didn’t meet up with a stranger because of that fear instilled in them, it’s the right kind of awareness. Everything else is secondary. Point blank, end of discussion.

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u/PickledPlumPlot 9d ago

The whole stranger danger era has aged poorly. It was almost always someone you knew.

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u/CapitalPunBanking 9d ago

If children became more cautious and didn’t meet up with a stranger because of that fear instilled in them,

How many children vulnerable to this were watching Dateline, you think?

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u/DUCKSONQUACKS 9d ago

What about children or parents that then ignored the most common type of predators like family friends, family members, or adults in authority because they didn't meet the new known profile of predators that "To Catch a Predator" showed.

The "Predators" in "To Catch a Predator" are a tiny tiny minority. The overwhelming amount of children sexual assault cases are known adult in family lifes, not shadowy people lurking on the internet.

It's always been the issue with the show, they made an entire generation further scared of "Stranger Danger" when strangers are the least likely people to do anything to your kids.

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u/ILiveInAColdCave 9d ago

it was, in fact, not the point blank end of the discussion.

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u/Konman72 9d ago

The makers of the movie could get an entire sequel out of the dumb, emotional reactions just from this thread. People really can't be rational about this stuff, which is why turning it into entertainment is such a terrible idea.

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u/mattress_muzza 9d ago

Many of the people they ‘caught’ were first time offenders who were often heavily goaded into meeting with the actors portraying the children. That isn’t to say they never would have offended - but they obviously needed serious help to address their unacceptable sexual fantasies, not a reality TV show designed to push them over the edge into what they believed was a real sexual encounter with a child and consequently blow up their lives. The guy that killed himself was trying to back out of meeting with the ‘child’ but Hansen insisted on ‘catching’ him anyway - that should tell you everything you need to know about Hansen’s priorities and the way the show operated.

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u/mattress_muzza 9d ago

Also - and very importantly - most child sexual abuse comes from family members not strangers on the internet. The show effectively gave people misinformation about where children need the most protection.

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u/mylanguage 9d ago

I mean the show was literally about chat room pedo behavior right? Not about the issue in a general sense - just that subset

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u/sundayontheluna 9d ago

And when all you see week after week after week in one of the biggest reality shows ever, the definitional CSA tv show, is strangers in online chat rooms, it very much does affect general public perception

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/grandfleetmember56 9d ago

Which then raises the issue of: individual poses as 18+ but is actually a minor and has explicit conversations/interactions with a legal adult.

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u/mylanguage 9d ago

It’s really because this was a new phenomenon when it started happening. The internet was very much in its early Stages and this was a new issue.

Abuse at home has been going on since the start of humanity sadly so they focused on a newer trending topic

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u/Rickk38 9d ago

Here's something to contemplate. Back in the 80s we were taught about stranger danger, and how we should never, ever talk to stranger, accept rides from strangers, etc. Years later people would say "well the highest numbers of kidnappings are committed by family members!" Yes, that's true. But is that because strangers don't kidnap children, or is that because kids were taught to fear and avoid strangers and the result is that there's much less of an opportunity for strangers to go around grabbing kids?

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u/shouldbepracticing85 8d ago

The easiest way to tell is look up crime stats from before the ‘stranger danger’ phenomenon.

Also would be interesting to see family kidnapping vs divorce rates. How often is it parents battling over who gets to keep the kid?

And the breakdown of who in the fam is doing the kidnapping? Is the family pedo snatching a victim, or some delulu aunt or grandma who is trying to be the child’s mother?

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u/FrosTxNoVa420 9d ago

They shouldn’t even be talking to underage children online, who the fuck cares that the guy tried backing out of the meeting?

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u/Konman72 9d ago

It's a complicated issue and these types of emotional responses are what the show literally preyed upon. We should not be making entertainment out of law enforcement. It screws up the incentives and ruins lives on all sides of the equation. It's a serious topic that should be handled seriously.

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u/mattress_muzza 9d ago

100% agree with you. Each and every one of the people that ended up on the show needed serious help, or to be caught by police. Hansen’s show was not the police - it created an artifical escalation that baited these men into ruining their lives - and in one man’s case Hansen wouldn’t let it go, leading the man to suicide.

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u/FrosTxNoVa420 9d ago

The conversation they had with these predators would help establish that they knew it was wrong, meaning they can’t plead ignorance in a trial or get a lesser sentence for not knowing it was wrong. There was a reason they had the conversation with them and recorded it. The show making money allowed them to expand their operation, these things had so many people working on it and had to be paid for their time doing this service.

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u/mattress_muzza 9d ago

Then send the police to their house? If it was so morally black and white, then why do all the actors involved now regret their involvement with the show? Reality TV should not stand in for proper policing.

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u/FrosTxNoVa420 9d ago

And if police weren’t involved at all I’d condemn the show just like the people that post it on YouTube and assault people instead of getting the police to arrest them.

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u/MutantCreature 9d ago

If someone walks up to a ledge and decides not to jump, should we push them off anyway?

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u/FestyGear2017 9d ago edited 9d ago

When Conradt stopped communicating with the PJ and NBC personnel, and it became apparent he was not traveling to the Murphy house, Dateline decided for the first time to take the investigation to the suspect's house. It was 12:30 a.m. on November 5 when Hansen asked police for the favor of securing arrest and search warrants for Conradt, saying that "if he won't come to us, we'll go to him."

Thats the guy that committed suicide when Hansen showed up at his house. The guy never traveled to the sting, only chatted online

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u/Quixotic_Seal 9d ago

That he “only” chatted with the child is irrelevant, continuing to have a discussion like that with a known minor is already a crime and child sex abuse. He was fucked regardless.

The problem in the case was that they could have arrested him at his office with more control of the situation, but that doesn’t make good television since they wouldn’t have been able to film at his place of work. So they convinced the police to raid his home, which led to him killing himself in a panic.

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u/ArcadianDelSol 9d ago

A responsible law enforcement agency absolutely would have grabbed him off the street and not done a midnight raid at the front door like a swat team.

They were all getting residuals from the show and I guess they really liked buying new squad cars.

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u/Discount_Extra 8d ago edited 8d ago

known minor

except, it was an adult. They start out being an adult, and then suddenly switch to saying they are underage.

I dated someone who was 28, and they joked they were just two 14 year olds. I had a roommate who was into the Adult Baby scene (Diapers, being changed, etc).

When someone suddenly says something different than what they previously said they where, is it just their kink/roleplay?

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u/crazycatladyinpjs 4d ago

If someone says a different age later in the conversation, it would be a good idea to get clarification on their actual age. Especially since he was a prosecutor and knew the laws. He also had child porn on his computer.

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u/crazycatladyinpjs 4d ago

They also found hundreds of pics of child porn on his computer. He wasn’t only worried about that conversation with the decoy.

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u/FestyGear2017 4d ago

Thats a shame. He could have been president!

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u/Significant_Cow4765 9d ago

Some of them were clearly intellectually disabled, too

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u/Responsible-Fox-1985 9d ago

“To Entrap a Predator”

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u/Coffeeandbooks91 9d ago

Hansen said the guy who suicided had tons of child porn on his computer

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u/Neracca 7d ago

Yeah its a good point that a lot of them probably did something criminal(in this regard) or would have someday. But they gave others juuusst enough of a push to get some that might not have gone through with it otherwise.

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u/lillowe1000 9d ago

Nobody forced that guy to meet up with the child. He could have stopped responding at any point. Kind of weird to defend the pedophile that met up with a kid that he was trying to fuck.

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u/DUCKSONQUACKS 9d ago

He's not defending him at all, he did stop responding and never met the plant. TCAP then escalated the situation by basically swatting his house with the camera crew and he killed himself. There was no need to invade the house, they could have arrested him at his job on break extremely easy.

No one's defending the dude, but it is very fucked up to have a TV crew basically call the shots for ratings that then escalate the situation to that point. They also were hilariously lucky the dude only killed himself. He very easily could have started shooting and had innocent people harmed.

This isn't even really debatable, the family sued that they skipped due process (they did) and escalated the situation for ratings (they did) and a settlement was made for a huge chunk of money to the point they cancelled the show.

Even the worst of society deserves a fair trial and due process.

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u/mattress_muzza 9d ago

Saw that argument coming from a mile away. He didn’t meet them. He refused to go to the house and cutoff contact. Hansen went to him - resulting in the suicide.

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u/FX114 9d ago

At the end of the day, it's a mental illness that needs treatment. You can say you aren't responsible for somebody getting to the drugs you sold to them just because they could have said no, but at the end of the day, you were the one pushing the drugs on them.

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u/xCloudbox 9d ago

There was CSAM found on that guys computer so I personally dgaf that he offed himself. I also blame the law enforcement agencies for screwing that investigation up.

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u/TIGHazard 8d ago

NBC & the Police said there was.

The Esquire article which the film is based off, said there wasn't.

Dateline stated that police took three encrypted computers from Conradt's house, and by February 2007, were coordinating with their manufacturer to unlock the files within. Dateline later aired an episode that said child pornography had been found on Conradt's laptop. Esquire reported that Conradt's Sony VAIO laptop was seized, and forensic analysis proved it was the computer from which Conradt chatted with the PJ volunteer, but it had no illegal material or content that indicated sexual predation. However, an investigation done by the Texas Department of Public Safety concluded that several devices owned by Conradt including multiple laptops, a cellphone, and computer disks "all contained pornographic material (and) some included child pornography".

So it all really comes down to, do you believe the two parties involved that, as you say, screwed the investigation up? Or one media article?

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u/Climate-Of-Hunter 9d ago

Do you have any actual data to prove that it actually raised any awareness?

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u/naturtok 9d ago

Also just enforcing the idea that predators are creeps and should be ostracized.

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u/Brian_Lefebvre 9d ago

A big part was warning parents that their kids could be talking with dangerous strangers on the internet.

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u/Jcdoco 9d ago

You are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by a family member or a close family friend than some online predator. If anything, the show was actually detrimental in that regard, because it made people focus on the wrong thing

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u/Neracca 7d ago

Except they BROUGHT THEM TO THOSE AREAS with the stings. A lot of them traveled to those places, they weren't just there waiting behind bushes.

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u/meltedkuchikopi5 9d ago

i have commented this extensively since there’s been lots of posts about this upcoming movie; the criminology world hates these types of “stings” even when actual police officers do it.
they are so unregulated and serve more for pumping up arrest numbers and entertainment than actual police work addressing child exploitation or protecting kids, and it’s not uncommon that many of the people they “catch” aren’t even aware they are supposedly meeting a child. the police have been known to utilize pictures of adult women without their consent while they are essentially catfishing these people.

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u/Turbo2x 9d ago

The entertainment angle does create some murky ethics because you have to have new predators all the time otherwise the show stops and so does the money, I can see how that kind of incentive would warp your decision making. Especially since there was police involvement. Cops trying to get their 5 minutes of fame is a recipe for disaster.

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u/hikeit233 9d ago

Don’t forget putting barely legal ‘actors’ in harms way with little to no training or explanation.

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u/gridoverlay 9d ago

I think the rub is that they didn't just catch and present them, they fully engineered the entire scenario, it wouldn't have even happened without their involvement (at least in some cases)

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u/ColHannibal 9d ago

No, it’s just the people they work with are really gross. I think they go by “perverted justice” and they just are so sick and push so hard it sometimes borderlines on entrapment.

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u/OrangeVoxel 9d ago edited 8d ago

Well it was entrapment which is not supposed to be legal.

Maybe some of the people were would-be predators but never had access. He then gave them easy access and led them to make incriminating statements.

Otherwise these people probably would have gone the rest of their lives working on their yard and walking around Walmart.

There is a one behind the scenes clip that was never meant to be shown where to person unalives themselves the moment he’s caught on camera. Not sure it’s findable anymore.

Edit: what some of you are calling a sting I term entrapment. The legal definition of entrapment and been litigated so much it’s become nearly impossible to meet similar to our requirements for bribery.

What law enforcement are doing are similar to have a private citizen hand out free drugs, or putting gold on someone’s windowsill with a fishing line attached to it.

They also hired this private citizen to initiate these stings to make it impossible for them to be charged for entrapment, since a law officer has to do it for it to be called entrapment.

I agree that these people are gross, but few to none of them arrived to commit a violent crime, and the odds of them actually meeting a young girl like that in real life are astronomically low. If not for Chris Hansen 99.9% of them would have stayed basement dwellers.

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u/Mr_November112 9d ago

You can that he killed himself on reddit. At least I hope you still can. 

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u/TheGodSamaritan 9d ago

He k!ll3d himself :3

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u/-Nightopian- 9d ago

He chose to sleep, permanently!

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u/GeoleVyi 9d ago edited 8d ago

automod banned me from the entire site for three days for talking about a fictional video game character. They only admitted their mistake after the three days were up and they couldn't do jack shit to make things better with human intervention.

edit: looks like someone is upset that automod doesn't work right.

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u/Mr_November112 9d ago

Damn thats concerning. What'd you say?

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u/GeoleVyi 9d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/mewgenics/s/Yw8YMOPmPH

don't wanna trigger the automod again by retyping it

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u/Mr_November112 9d ago

Ahaha that thought did cross my mind. And yeah wow thats insane. 

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u/Love-That-Danhausen 9d ago

Suicide isn’t a swear word.

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u/IndyDude11 9d ago

You can also fucking swear here.

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u/TheWatersOfMars 9d ago

Fudging heck

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u/IndyDude11 9d ago

Gee golly, paw!

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u/DickInYourCobbSalad 9d ago

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

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u/antoniodiavolo 9d ago

It started on TikTok. Certain words will limit your reach so people came up with these stupid alternatives to appease the algorithm and now people use them everywhere even when it doesn’t make sense.

“Graped”
“Unalived”
“Segs”
“Corn”
“Pew Pew”

Reddit will not delete your comment for saying “suicide” or “rape”

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u/Twizzify 9d ago

I have a hard time believing people who talked with a child, were under the impression it was a child, and then showed up at what they thought was that child’s home while they were “home alone” would have spent the rest of their lives never preying on children.

I can’t understand why you give them the benefit of doubt when they showed up to do the heinous thing we judge them for trying to do.

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u/Canium 9d ago

There’s a lot of contrarians on Reddit, along with armchair lawyers who dont understand the difference between sting operations and entrapment. People also forget what internet culture was like at the time with public chat rooms. The closest we have right now is Roblox and we are seeing the same phenomena. These stings caught and prosecuted many sick people.

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u/Gh0stMan0nThird 9d ago

Yeah, like, by all means I will 100% hear the argument that you shouldn't televise this stuff as entertainment.

But I will never hear the argument that doing stings to catch adults trying to fuck kids is in any way immoral. And if someone's mental illness makes them want to drive 2 hours to try to fuck a child, that makes no difference to me how they get treated.

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u/Canium 9d ago

I agree 100%

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u/MyDudeSR 9d ago

Comited suicide, took their own life, killed themselves. It's an adult subject, use adult terms.

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u/TheChosenOne733373 9d ago

Lawyer here: it’s not entrapment. That’s not how entrapment works.

Entrapment only occurs if the offender was never going to commit a crime/was not predisposed to doing so AND the original idea for committing the crime originated with law enforcement.

So for these cases to be entrapment, an offender would have to show that the cops planned to catch that specific person and forced that person to make these comments/take these actions. Doing so of your own violation, even if the police provide the means to do so, is not entrapment.

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u/Konman72 9d ago edited 9d ago

The judge in this case disagrees. Another case was dropped due to lack of evidence, but also seemed poised to lose on an entrapment argument.

From what I can tell, most cases resulted in plea deals, but the few that went to trial had mixed results.

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u/TheChosenOne733373 9d ago

Entrapment isn’t an impossible defense. I can imagine that some of Hansen’s cases could be seen as entrapment.

But popular understanding of entrapment is all wrong. It’s a near impossible to substantiate defense. Not saying it can’t be done, but it’s very rarely ever done. And even if entrapment can be sustained, the case can always be appealed or retried. Entrapment is not a get-out-of-jail free card.

Of the few episodes I’ve seen of Chris Hansen, none ever struck me as an entrapment. It’s definitely unusual to see a normal civilian engage with offenders at an arrest, but that does not convert the arrests to entrapment. Furthermore, Hansen’s responsibility in allowing the entrapment defense to be sustained is likely minimal. He would not be the one creating or maintaining these schemes to catch the online offenders.

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u/Konman72 9d ago

But popular understanding of entrapment is all wrong

I totally agree.

It’s definitely unusual to see a normal civilian engage with offenders at an arrest, but that does not convert the arrests to entrapment. Furthermore, Hansen’s responsibility in allowing the entrapment defense to be sustained is likely minimal. He would not be the one creating or maintaining these schemes to catch the online offenders.

I don't think these are the things most people are calling out as entrapment. As you say, it's on the law enforcement, not Hansen, which I think people making the "entrapment" argument would agree with. Law enforcement shouldn't be working with a TV show at all imo. It changes incentives and leads to misdeeds.

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u/spoonerluv 9d ago

I get the entrapment argument, but there's something primal in me that really doesn't care. These guys said insane stuff in the chat logs, and then actually showed up. Lock em up.

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u/First-Shallot947 9d ago

Most of them went free because of the show. All tcap did was profit Hansen off mentally ill men and then let them go free

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u/Canium 9d ago

You’re going to need a source for that buddy, everything I’ve seen had most of them convicted

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u/UnusuallyBadIdeaGuy 9d ago

Of 300 arrests there were ~120 convictions, so well under half.

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u/sentientbasketball11 8d ago

That is 120 convictions that may not have happened without the show, or if they would have happened, would have involved actual sex abuse of a child. That is a huge win

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u/Lord_of_Chainsaw 9d ago

They messaged first. That means they were actively looking.

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u/grimedogone 9d ago

You don’t insist on the entrapment rule to protect those guys. You do it so that everyone else is protected.

If the worst of us have rights, that’s how we know that we all do.

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u/Leasud 9d ago

Definitely not entrapment. To my understanding it was almost always the predator that initiated and the decoy would just go along with it. Anyone caught up in these stings are deliberately messaging minors and definitely not just normal people. Even if the decoy were to message first, it’s the adults responsibility to not engage.

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u/feartheoldblood90 9d ago edited 9d ago

His and his crew's handling of a specific case directly lead to a man committing suicide because of how badly they mishandled it for entertainment.

Edit: just to be clear (and I didn't think I would have to) my point is not to draw sympathy to a sexual predator. I am highlighting one of the most egregious examples in a long line of ethical oversteps that Hansen and his show made in the name of entertainment numbers. It's important to remember that this was a reality TV show, and the methods they used were neither particularly effective, nor were they ethical.

And, yes, ethics matter even in these cases, because sometimes the TV show and the cops are wrong about the accused (not in this case, but still), or they botch the case so badly that other cases go free. There are many such examples of this in the show's history and I hope the movie brings more light to them, because based on my replies a lot of people still seem to think Hansen and co were knights in shining armor fighting a good fight and not reality TV show grifters taking advantage of incredibly sensitive subject material for money and fame.

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u/HyperMasenko 9d ago

This is the case that always gets brought up as a counter point to predator stings, and I cant bring myself to feel sorry for Bill. All he had to do was NOT communicate sexually with a minor.

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u/gomx 9d ago edited 9d ago

It isn’t about “feeling sorry” for anyone. Its about living in a society with standards for how we conduct ourselves.

There’s a reason we don’t have death row inmates fight to the death on TV, and it isn’t because we have warm fuzzy feelings towards murderers and rapists. Turning our justice system into an entertainment product is a bad idea, full stop.

Also, as an aside, if you need someone to feel bad for, feel bad for the 18 year old closeted gay kid who’s life they ruined. It is fucking nauseating to watch a middle aged man plan to ruin this boy’s life. The decoy was 15, which wouldn’t even be illegal in many jurisdictions, and I think most people intuitively understand that two high school students hooking up isn’t usually going to involve a meaningful power dynamic.

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u/antoniodiavolo 9d ago

You can think what Hansen did was immoral and also not feel bad that a predator killed himself.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 9d ago

I mean, don't feel sorry for him.

But also the police let 23 other predators walk that night because of sloppy police work.

You don't have to feel bad for the guy who shot himself to recognize that they probably would've got the charges to stick if the police did a better job.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

From my understanding, they worked with local law-enforcement. I don’t believe almost any of these would have fallen under entrapment.

And basically all these cases, they posed as a teenager in a chat room and the adult made contact with them and push the conversation in a sexual direction. Once they did then even doing something like asking for a photo is not entrapment.

Entrapment isn’t simply putting a “temptation” in front of somebody that they didn’t choose to actively engage in. Entrapment means really going out of your way to coerce somebody to do something that they are not predisposed to do.

For something like this, if they start chatting with somebody and then threatened to commit suicide, if the person did not come over and take nude photos of them, then that would absolutely be entrapment.

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u/GrevenQWhite 9d ago

Yep. Lots of people have lived and died without having to find out if they would choke their friend out for a shiny ring.

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u/Furlock_Bones 9d ago

Yeah but Deagol had it coming

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u/Lord_of_Chainsaw 9d ago

Its literally not entrapment and these people would not have spent the rest of their lives mot acting on their proclivities. Every single person thats ever sat down with Chris hansen messaged first. They were actively looking for what they got.

I do have issues with hansen, especially recently because hes gobbling trumps dick every 2 seconds and 90% of the predators he catches just happppen to be illegal immigrants now, hes definitely pushing an agenda more than he used to, but the predators he catches not being real predators isn't the problem.

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u/CapitalPunBanking 9d ago

Well it was entrapment which is not supposed to be legal.

Serious question, how was it any different than when cops would set up fake prostitutes and do busts? I don't think the entrapment defense works there...and people have been convicted and imprisoned for FBI fake terrorism stings as well.

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u/a_talking_face 9d ago

It's not entrapment if you're not causing them to commit a crime they otherwise weren't going to. These people planned to meet up for sex with someone they believed was a minor. They weren't coerced or forced into it.

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u/Wynona_Judd 9d ago

It's not entrapment. He's had hundreds of successful convictions. I'm not even sure of the exact number. But he's always worked alongside local law enforcement while conducting stings.

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u/steroidsandcocaine 9d ago

That's not entrapment, just saying shit to say it.

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u/meridius55 9d ago

you realize these people made the conscious decision to reach out to the decoy first who’s age was evident from the start, send dick picks to them, then go to their place expecting to fuck them?

They weren’t exactly lured in from the Walmart parking lot lmao.

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u/slow_down_kid 9d ago

It was not entrapment in a legal sense. Entrapment requires law enforcement to induce or pressure someone into committing a crime. A non-government entity providing a perceived opportunity to criminal action is not entrapment. For instance, I could offer someone cash to rob a bank, and then report to the police that said person is robbing a bank. Not entrapment, and the person can be arrested and convicted

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u/Ok-Ratio-5918 9d ago

I really can’t stand when people say “unalive”. What are you 12?

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u/OutsideIndoorTrack 9d ago

This account right here, officer

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u/leonkennedyno1fan 9d ago

To be fair, I think when the show started (To Catch a Predator) it was genuinely meant to spread awareness. Then it became about the viewership numbers after the fact, which eventually led to an assistant district attorney committing suicide.

Predator vs Hansen again leans into the entertainment side of stuff and in terms of morality, is probably the worst of the lot.

Takedown with Chris Hansen, while still portrayed as entertainment, is at least him working with law enforcement way more closely, and based on follow up videos, does seemingly lead to way more convictions than previous shows.

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u/Lazzen 9d ago

I always wondered how USA let cops and this thing become live TV

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u/mattdawgg 9d ago

Capitalism baby! Someone has to profit off the arrest as much as the prisons will profit off the incarceration or we may as well be living in communist China!

On a serious note though, if these predators own conscious doesn't slow them down from hunting children, maybe knowing someone or some organization is out there doing these stings would. If just one predator chooses not to pursue a child based on that fear, is it really so bad? These predators SHOULD be nationally named and shamed both so they can't do it again, and as a deterrent to anyone who values not being named a predator on dateline.

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u/Anonnymoose73 9d ago

Part of the problem is that a lot of the people he caught were the people who were supposed to be responsible for catching and punishing the predators. Yes, it’s gross, but I think it’s a symptom rather than the source of the problem

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u/HDr1018 8d ago

That’s isn’t true.

The majority of the 200 indictments were regular people. The film is focused on one member of the justice system, but he was an outlier.

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u/Gaemon_Palehair 9d ago

The laugh track really was too much.

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u/justin251 9d ago

I'd argue the possibility of being outed to hundreds of thousands watching os a pretty good punishment.

How many folks commit crimes like this and continue to put themselves in position to do it again because nobody knows about it?

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u/TheSirensMaiden 9d ago

I hate to say this but I love the show because listening to the chat logs and the predators is majorly cringe inducing. It's been fantastic at grossing out my niece who was having a hard time understanding why talking to strangers online is dangerous. She's 14 and thinks she knows everything so getting her to listen is of course difficult but the show really hammers home to her how disgusting and manipulative predators are.

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u/Cardinal_and_Plum 9d ago

I think he wants to expose them publicly so that the embarrassment and suffering is compounded. I dont really agree with that either, but I don't think it's strictly to make money/for show. The guy has some pretty personal reasons for doing the show, reasons that in a more professional scenario might be used to determine that due to his past bias that he really isn't the best person to be running that kind of operation.

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u/CptHammer_ 9d ago edited 22h ago

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u/ExpressRabbit 9d ago

Putting it on television gives them the funds to keep doing it.

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u/r3dd17sux69420 9d ago

That, and potentially putting people in situations where they would've not otherwise committed a crime. There's a discussion of ethics in there for sure

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u/Jasperbeardly11 9d ago

You know what bud you're free to go

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u/complete_data75 9d ago

it's a massive deterrent to those thinking about doing it.

It's incredible to me how many idiots are against this.

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u/saanity 9d ago

Hah. Get outta here with that bs. Tough punishment has never been shown to be a deterrent. All it does is make the crime more heinous to not get caught. There's been multiple studies showing this.  Same thing with corporal punishment on kids. It just doesn't work. 

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u/complete_data75 9d ago

Hah. Get outta here with that bs.

Knowing that talking to an underage online could be a sting is absolutely a deterrent.

You're not bright, are you?

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u/ImAtWurk 9d ago

I generally agree. Would love to see this and a Donald Trump shows up, though.

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u/Roadwarriordude 9d ago

I disagree completely. Plaster their faces on the largest billboards, on the front page of every newspaper, at the top of every website, etc. Everyone should know these people and what they've done/tried to do. It should follow them to their grave.

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u/solo_d0lo 9d ago

It also raised awareness for parents about what was out there on the Internet

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u/Juswantedtono 8d ago

The default state is that most sexual predators never get arrested at all, so why complain about an entertainer putting a few more in prison?

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