U. of Washington targeted by Campus Feminist/ MeToo vigilantes through online vigilante website

Washington State already has a problem with vigilantes. Now this cancer has spread to the U. of Washington. I guess it will be a matter of time before someone gets sued for defamation.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/make-them-scared-website-associated-with-university-allows-for-anonymous-sex-assault-accusations/

‘Make them scared’ website posts uncorroborated sexual assault claims against male students
DANIEL PAYNE - ASSISTANT EDITOR •OCTOBER 5, 2018

Site features dozens of unsubstantiated allegations; take them ‘with a grain of salt,’ moderators say

A website allegedly run by University of Washington students allows individuals to publicly accuse people of sexual assault with no evidence.

The website, titled “Make them scared UW,” was first registered in November of last year but reportedly launched in late September of this year by University of Washington students, the Daily UW campus newspaper reports.

It appears that the list of accused rapists and sexual assault perpetrators has grown substantially on the site in recent weeks in the wake of the rape claims made against U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Meanwhile, one student named on “Make them scared UW” told The College Fix that the allegation is false, that the University of Washington has dismissed the allegations against him as completely uncorroborated and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Thus far, every person named on the list is male, and their names include the school they attend. Many listed on the site appear to be University of Washington students, but as apparent word of this site has spread, students from many other colleges are now listed, too.

The site does not employ any mechanisms to verify the truth of any accusations it publishes, and the website’s moderators attempt to protect themselves from liability or criticism by stating atop the list of the accused: “Please remember, just because a name is on this list does not mean the individual is guilty. All it means is that we have received an accusation against them.”

The moderators of the website did not respond to The College Fix‘s repeated requests for comment. The Fix sought to learn if the site’s moderators had any concerns about accusations being directed at innocent people, and whether or not the website has received any legal challenges for publishing unverified allegations.

According to the FAQ page of the website, “Make them scared UW” is a “communal rape list.”

It is “intended to be an online hub for anyone who wants to expose the names of their attackers and harassers, and to fill a gap left by inadequate treatment of these cases by formal institutions.”

“One of our site’s moderators will review your submission, verify your contact information, and after receiving your confirmation, publish the information you provided us (minus any personally identifying info) on the list page on our site,” the FAQ page tells individuals who wish to submit an accusation.

“We do not have the ability to determine whether any accused party is guilty or innocent of the accused acts, so take all names listed with a grain of salt,” the site’s front page states.

Via Facebook message, The College Fix managed to contact one student on the list, a young man who was identified as attending the University of Washington. The student denied having sexually assaulted his accuser.

“I was investigated by my school’s office and found that there was insufficient evidence of what she was accusing me of,” he told The Fix. He said the allegation stems from a night in which he and his accuser “both got pretty drunk,” after which he performed oral sex on her. After he attempted to initiate intercourse, his accuser said no, at which point he “backed off,” he said.

“This girl gave the investigator at my school literally everything, our facebook messages, our snapchat messages (she saved all of them), text messages, and even my reddit account and I was deemed to be so not a threat to her that the investigator didn’t even care if I was in the same class as her,” the student said. He said that he wasn’t even aware he was on the “Make Them Scared” list until The Fix contacted him.

Campus spokesman Victor Balta told The Fix that the school has not decided how to proceed on the issue.

“The contents of the website are very concerning, and the UW is committed to our work toward preventing sexual violence and sexual harassment, maintaining support and protections for anyone who experiences such violence, properly investigating and addressing allegations, and upholding due process,” Balta said via email.

Asked if the school was aware if the website is run by students at the University of Washington, Balta said: “We don’t know for certain.”

Asked if false allegations on the site made or posted by students or affiliates of the university would be treated as “harassment” under school policy, Balta said: “If the university received a complaint that an individual was being harassed or bullied by a student, we would investigate it in the same manner as we would any other case.” Balta reiterated that the university is uncertain if the site is run by students.

In an interview with the student newspaper The Daily UW, University of Washington School of Law associate professor Zahr Said said that the website moderators could face “considerable risks of a defamation lawsuit by anyone whose name they mention in connection with a criminal behavior or sexual assault that gives rise to civil liability.”

But the site’s moderators told The Daily: “We hope that anyone whose name was inaccurately posted on our site will let us know so we can remedy the situation. We’ve verified each claim to the best of our ability, and have not published any claims which we believed to be false.”

“The site’s domain name was registered Nov. 29, 2017, with additional security so as not to reveal the identity of the individual who registered it,” The Daily reported.

Kelso WA vigilante thug Curtis J Hart is abusing the court to harass level 1 registrants in his community

If the judge needed any proof of Curtis Hart's ill intent, all he had to do was look at the harassment the OnceFallen.com received at the hands of Hart and his cohorts. In the past few hours, a number of folks flooded the OnceFallen FB page with harassing comments. This goes to show that the state of  Washington does not enforce the ban on the misuse of registry info to harass registered persons. 

It should be noted that The Daily News has seemingly supported vile vigilante activity. They are strongly connected to another Washington vigilante, Donna Zink, and helped promote a similar fight Zink had done. They are censoring certain posts made by those critical of Curtis Hart. 

https://tdn.com/news/local/judge-grants-hart-sex-offender-records-pending-appeal/article_45073298-6deb-560b-8499-ef6481470d18.html

Judge grants Hart sex offender records, pending appeal

Alex Bruell alex.bruell@tdn.com  Oct 4, 2018

Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning said he has “no doubt in (his) mind” that Curtis Hart will make “childish, irresponsible, vindictive and immature use” of records of all level 1 sex offenders in Cowlitz County.

But, “reluctantly,” Warning concluded Wednesday that the law requires that Hart should get them.

“Sometimes the law is an ass,” Warning said, “and Mr. Hart is entitled to his records.”

Hart won’t get the records yet, though. Warning will decide Oct. 10 what should or should not be withheld from the request. In the meantime, attorneys representing some of the offenders will be able to appeal the decision — which attorneys indicated is a near certainty.

At the very least, about 200 of the county’s 570 level 1 offenders committed their crimes while they were juvenile, and their names will not be released, according to the county sheriff’s office.

Hart, a Kelso resident who said he wants post the sex offenders’ names on the Internet, called Warning’s decision “pretty good.”

“I very much think of this as a First Amendment battle,” Hart said after Warning’s ruling.

He has said that sex predators deserve scorn and that he doubts many of the offenders are capable of reform, even though level 1 offenders are considered the least likely to reoffend. Hart has acted as a self-appointed sex offender vigilante who has organized a “punisher squad” that has baited several would-be offenders, leading to at least three being arrested and charged.

Previously, only a handful of offenders had sought injunctions to block release of their names. However, on Wednesday, four attorneys argued on behalf of about 50 “John Doe” offenders also seeking injunctions. They said that releasing their names would make them vulnerable to harassment, attack, loss of employment and public embarrassment.

On an individual basis, records about specific sex offenders are publicly available. But police databases listing all level 1 offenders are generally not published, though the state Supreme Court ruled in a 2016 Franklin County case that they must be disclosed if someone requests them under the state Open Records Act.

Attorney and privately contracted public defender Joshua Baldwin argued Hart’s request should be blocked based on concern for vigilante action against the offenders.

“(Hart) considers it sport to harass or otherwise harm people he believes are sexual predators,” Baldwin told Warning. “He has exhibited a willingness to support ... violence against them.”

Hart told The Daily News in September that he doesn’t advocate violence and, on Wednesday, he told the court that he doesn’t “intend to harass anybody.”

Rather, he said he’s only trying to make information available so people can make “an informed decision” about who they live near or let near their children. And he disputed claims that posts on “The Punisher Squad” Facebook page, which he operates with several other moderators, indicate that he wishes violence against sex offenders.

One such post referenced by lawyers shows an image of a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire accompanied by a caption that reads, “Liberals: you can’t just wave(sic) a magic wand and make pedophilia disappear.”

“I share thousands of memes on the internet all the time,” Hart told Warning. “I am a pacifist. ... It’s legal to be mean. It’s legal to offend people.”

He also said he’s changed his mind about being selective about which offenders names to publish online. Now, he said, he intends to post the entire list when he receives it.

Warning cited the Franklin County Supreme Court case in deciding to grant Hart’s request. If there is a concern that it could endanger the offenders, that’s a job for the Legislature to contend with. His job is to uphold the law, Warning said.

Baldwin argued that the Franklin County case ruling is not a precedent in Hart’s case. In that case, Donna Zink requested and received the names of 21,000 registered sex offenders across the state, but she didn’t ask for as much identifying information as Hart has, according to Baldwin.

Eli Marchbanks, a Vancouver attorney representing several of the plaintiffs, said research on the topic has shown disclosing sex offenders’ information can lead to harassment, assault, and even death. Disrupting their stability potentially increases the risk that an offender offends again, he said, and would decrease public safety.

Hart argued that even if releasing the records made sex offenders more likely to reoffend, it would be “all the more reason for people to find out who (those sex offenders) are.”

Marchbanks asked Warning to set the matter for a trial to give all sides more time to present a case.

“If that information is released now, then the cat’s out of the bag,” he said.

(Hart) considers it sport to harass or otherwise harm people he believes are sexual predators. He has exhibited a willingness to support ... violence against them. — Joshua Baldwin,

attorney for sex offenders

VIGILANTE ALERT! The dumbasses at Anonymous are once again going after registry reform activists

I'm not going to go into specific details (as I don't want certain assholes obtaining the info) to encourage the trolls but The Anonymous scumbags (calling themselves "The Hive") is doxxing members of activist groups. This is a heads up warning as one group has already been doxxed by the Anonymous fucktards.

Vigilante scumbag Tony Blas operates in the NYC area

This sorry son of a bitch is just the latest wannabe vigilante trying to get his 15 minutes.

So long as the police don't arrest these vigilante scumbags, they continue to work unimpeded. Sooner of later, their antics will get them hurt or worse, and I'll have a hard time caring when it happens.

This sick fuck's Facebook page is back up and he's even trying to sell trashy tee-shirts to make money.

https://nypost.com/2018/08/04/this-vigilante-dad-sets-up-online-traps-to-catch-child-predators/

This vigilante dad sets online traps to catch child predators
By Melkorka Licea August 4, 2018 | 9:25pm

A Queens dad has become a video vigilante, setting online traps for potential child predators and then blasting the real-life confrontations on Facebook for everyone to see.

Many have questioned Tony Blas’ methods and motivations, but few can argue with his results: So far he’s netted nine men in his virtual web, including an upstate teacher who was arrested Tuesday after the State Police viewed one of Blas’ gotcha clips.

Jonathan Castell, 44, a math teacher at Middletown HS, was charged with attempting to endanger the welfare of a child, police said. School officials suspended the 20-year educator “pending further investigation,” according to the school’s Web site.

Blas, a stocky, 36-year-old plumber, and his crew of eight stay-at-home moms began hunting for sexual predators two months ago. The team posts ads on dating sites claiming to be women in their late teens and twenties.

Once they get a response, Blas explains, they drop the bait: “Really, I’m only 13, 14 or 15 years old.

“If the men keep talking to us, then we know to keep after them,” he says.

In some cases, the female decoys send old photos of themselves to keep their targets on the hook. A meeting is eventually set up somewhere in the city.

However, the target is not greeted by a pretty teen, but a beefy, bearded Blas in a black bandana — with his smartphone camera rolling.

“You came all the way from Middletown to meet a 15-year-old girl? You think that’s right?” Blas barks at Castell in the Facebook video — viewed by 342,000 people so far — of the July 27 sting in Queens.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything. I just wanted to hang out,” says the educator, perspiring profusely. “I just wanted to meet her. I wanted to see if she was for real.”

Blas continues to shame Castell, who’s wearing a Captain America T-shirt, while following him down the block.

“You’re sweating like a f–king guilty person on trial right now,” Blas says. “People like you make me f–king sick. You came out here to take the innocence of a f–king child.”

Castell had exchanged messages with one of Blas’ helpers, who went by “Brittany L.” on the Tagged app for a week before they agreed to meet at a McDonald’s in Glendale, Queens, according to a criminal complaint.

At one point during their Web chats, Castell told Brittany “he was dreaming about me and that it involved a can of whipped cream and a cherry on my tummy,” the decoy told investigators, according to the complaint. He also called her a “tease” and said he “thinks about me all day long.”

He sent the girl several photos of himself, including one in his bed and one in his bathroom with his shirt off, the complaint says.

When asked if he would bring a condom to their rendezvous, he allegedly replied, “Yes, I can.”

The 8-minute clip, posted the night of the sting, went viral, making it into the hands of Middletown HS principal Tracey Sorrentino almost immediately.

“It was brought to her attention by some parent groups,” said Trooper Steven Nevel, a State Police spokesman. Four days later, Castell, who made $97,000 last year, was cuffed at his home.

To Blas, the arrest is proof his controversial mission and vigilante methods are justified.

“I’m shining a much-needed light on these cockroaches,” he told The Post during one of his stings last week. “It’s about exposing them and letting people know who they are.”

Blas’ motivation comes from a deep, dark place: he was sexually abused by a close female family member for years as a child.

“If somebody can do that to their own family, anybody in the world is capable of doing that to a child,” said Blas, who has two daughters ages 5 and 11.

He also seems hungry for redemption. He admits he is a former heroin addict who robbed drug dealers and did time in prison before getting clean and turning his life around.

“Finally being able to do something positive means the world to me,” said Blas.

He was also inspired by a movement in the UK, spread through social media, where vigilante groups with names like Dark Justice, Guardians of the North, Silent Justice and Stinson Hunter have sprung up in the last few years, according to reports. Canada has followed with a group called Creep Catchers.

“I thought, ‘Why is no one doing this right here in my city?’ ” Blas said.

He began by posting an ad on a dating site claiming to be a 13-year-old girl. The response, he said, was “disgusting.”

“There were way too many grown men saying ‘Yes’ to meet a child,” he said.

Blas calls his group “Team Loyalty Makes you Family” — its Facebook page has attracted over 30,000 followers.

His team conducted its first “To Catch a Predator”-style sting in a video posted June 9 at the Louis H. Pink Houses in Brooklyn, where Blas confronted a bearded, balding man looking to meet a 15-year-old girl.

Most of the “decoys” are moms, some of whom will work 16 hours at a time hunting for pervs, Blas said.

As soon as I saw one of his videos I was hooked,” said one helper, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “I knew I needed to join. It feels so good to call these dudes out.”
This past Tuesday, she joined Blas on a sting in Queens to expose a 44-year-old Staten Island man. Posing as a 15-year-old, she and the man had been exchanging texts for five days.

“I want some sex … and a little neck to get me ready. If everything goes good, you can be my little shorty and I can pick you up some things from time to time … Like Jordans,” one of the man’s texts reads.

The 22-year-old helper, a social-justice major in college, didn’t mind putting herself at risk to help in the dragnet.

“I really want to catch this guy. He’s sick,” she said.

But Blas has plenty of critics.

Facebook shut down his page for several days last week because it “violated our community standards,” a spokeswoman said. He switched to YouTube, which also shut down his page.

Facebook reversed its decision on July 27. The site declined to explain its thinking.

One policing expert called Blas’ vigilante tactics dangerous.

“When someone gets cornered like a rat, that’s when they do stupid things to get away,” said retired NYPD Sgt. Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “They could come armed to the teeth knowing it could be a trap.”

The confrontations could also scare the men away from using online dating platforms — and from the undercover, online cops trying to catch them.

“This is not gonna end well if he keeps this up,” he said.

Vigilante gets a dose of his own medicine by being labeled a "paedo" on the internet, now fears for his life

Haunting ain't fun when the rabbit has the gun, eh, Josh? Enjoy that dose of your own medicine LOL

https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/07/paedophiles-get-revenge-vigilante-brought-28-sex-offenders-justice-7807905/

Paedophiles get revenge on vigilante who brought 28 sex offenders to justice 

Martine Berg Olsen Tuesday 7 Aug 2018 11:54 am

Paedophiles have sought revenge by portraying a vigilante, who has brought 28 sex offenders to justice, as a paedophile. Josh Blakely was forced to stop hunting for paedophiles and is too afraid to leave the house in fear of being attacked if someone recognises him from the six-month online hate campaign. The 38-year-old, from West Kensington, London, said: ‘I fear for my own safety now. If someone recognises me from what they have done I could be attacked by people thinking I am a sex offender.

‘People attack sex offenders in their society and people might think I am a sex offender if they see this online. ‘It’s taken my identity away from me, it’s taken my freedom away from me. They control my life.’ Blakely believes members of a paedophile ring, who feared he would target them next, stole images of him and created dozens of fake social media accounts, videos and website to wrongly paint him as a sex offender. The trolls even photoshopped images of Blakely to make it look like he had publicly demonstrated in a campaign to reduce the age of consent to six years old. He’s ‘pictured’ with a poster that reads: ‘I Josh Blakely demand Govt to lower the legal age of consent to six years old for boys and girls. Paedophiles are people! #SexWithKids.’

He now fears the next step is to try to set him up as a paedophile and make it look like he is trying to groom a child. Blakely said: ‘They have taken serious allegations to the police about the hunting community to try to get people arrested.

‘It’s very dangerous. They even posted up my home address and made threats to come and get me. ‘I am waiting for them to use my personal image to set me up and potentially use my “profile” to pretend to be me to groom a child. ‘Then they would use that evidence to set me up for an arrest and possible imprisonment for something I’ve never done. That is really scary for me.’ Despite Blakely reporting the images and social media pages, new Twitter profiles, YouTube accounts and LiveLeak videos describing him as a ‘nonce’ and a member of a ‘child porn paedophile ring’ continuously pops up. He said: ‘I have this fear that someone will recognise me and think I am a sex offender and I will be attacked or even killed.’

‘I don’t even go out and socialise anymore, I am single and shut myself in my own home like a prisoner.’ Blakely said he’s struggling to get a job because every time employers Google him ‘sex offender’ is the first thing they see. He said: ‘I can’t get employment because employers won’t want to employ someone that everywhere says is a sex offender. Even though I can prove that I am not a sex offender it doesn’t stop them from thinking it.’ Blakely continued: ‘I feel I know who it is – it is paedophiles who we have tried to expose or who feel threatened by the work we did. ‘I became well-known and respect in the community through the good work we were doing catching these paedophiles.

‘However looking back, I think I left myself open to threat without realising it. I opened myself up to too much.’ Blakely, who used to hunt paedophiles under the name Public Justice PHL, said: ‘I never did it to get famous and never got paid for what I did. I did it purely to ensure these kids got justice and to make sure these people weren’t out there doing this.

‘I have not committed any criminal offence. All I have done is protected children from being abused. It feels wrong then that I should be punished for it in this way.’ Blakely said he had applied for Google’s ‘right to be forgotten’ under EU laws, but they said due to ‘public interest’ they couldn’t remove some of the content. He added: ‘They presumably think I am a sex offender. ‘I think this is outrageous. It allows me to be made out to be a sex offender. Even when one of them is deleted, more pop up. I’ve had tons removed but they will be at it again a week later.

‘It’s like social media is responsible for it as well. They are allowing these things to remain up there.’ He explained that he has taken evidence into the police station but said ‘they don’t take it very seriously.’ A Met Police spokesperson said: ‘[We] can confirm officers from Hammersmith and Fulham are investigating allegations of malicious communications via social media. ‘The allegations were reported by the male victim on 25 Feb 2018. A number of inquiries are currently ongoing. ‘The victim has been updated as to the status of the investigation and advised that allegations of this nature can take time to investigate. There have been no arrests.’

Google also confirmed that they were in contact with Blakely and that they have taken action on some of the content. A Facebook spokesperson said: ‘There is no place for bullying or harassment on Facebook, which is why we have spent over a decade introducing new features and tools to keep people safe and have a positive experience. ‘We encourage Mr Blakely to continue reporting any incidents of trolling so we can remove content which violate our standards, as we have done previously.’ Despite Blakely claiming he had reported the online abuse to LiveLeak, a spokesperson said they could not find any reports in their system, but have subsequently removed one of the offending videos. A Twitter spokesperson said they were unable to comment on individual accounts.

QAnon, 4chan's latest cesspool, recycles and expands upon the fake #pizzagate conspiracy theory

This QAnon garbage has been around for almost a year, but is making a lot of news lately. So what is it? QAnon is yet another group of conspiracy theorists from 4chan. It is one part PizzaGate and other parts of pro-Trump conspiracies. Much of the political stuff is beyond the scope of the focus of this blog, but for a decent analysis of the group, read the second Vice article below. What is relevant is now we have roving bands of adherents to this QAnon group getting local authorities to investigate homeless camps under the guise of stopping human trafficking. Believers in the QAnon conspiracy hold that President Trump is a “brilliant four-dimensional chess player” using the Mueller investigation as a smokescreen to root out the murderous, Satanic, pedophilic deep state. (It’s a Trump-era catchall conspiracy: Pizzagate + Seth Rich + the Illuminati.) Among those accused of pedophilia by QAnon are many Hollywood celebrities from Tom Hanks to the rapper Eminem. 

QAnon is using the oldest trick in the book-- labeling opponents as "pedophiles" o discredit the critics. 

Again, unlike PizzaGate, QAnon isn't just about sex crimes; it is a conglomerate of Pro-Trump extremist conspiracy theories created by 4chan intended to troll the ignorant masses.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zm8ww8/qanon-conspiracy-theorists-are-hunting-for-child-sex-camps-in-the-arizona-desert

PIZZAGATE
|
By Matthew Gault
|
Jun 7 2018, 12:54pm

#QANON Conspiracy Theorists Are Hunting for 'Child Sex Camps' in the Arizona Desert
A veteran’s charity in Arizona is hunting pedophiles in Tucson and asking the internet for help.

On May 29, Lewis Arthur and Veterans on Patrol (VOP)—a Tucson area charity that helps homeless veterans—stumbled upon a makeshift homeless shelter and decided it was a child sex trafficking dungeon. Arthur and company found a barbie doll, straps on a tree they said were used to bind children, Playboy magazines, a stroller, and an empty septic tank. According to Arthur and the group, these were the markers of a child sex trafficking operation.

Now, the group is patrolling interstate 19 in Arizona and demanding that authorities declare a state of emergency. Conspiracy theorists on the internet have pointed to the VOP operation and the discovery of the camp as proof of the Qanon conspiracy theory, which claims that a cabal of shadowy groups funded by various elements of the Democratic party are running a worldwide child sex slave trafficking operation. It’s like Pizzagate combined with The DaVinci Code. A representative of the Tucson Police Department told Motherboard over the phone that an investigation of the area revealed no evidence of human trafficking.

The conspiracy theory started on 4chan’s /pol/ board in October of last year when an anonymous user started posting cryptic messages. The user claimed to be a highly placed government official who was sitting on a wealth of information about the sex cult. From there, it gets complicated.

Qanon has been percolating on the internet for a year now and it’s a weird conspiracy theory that has no shreds of actual evidence behind it. But that doesn’t stop people from believing it. And—as Pizzagate showed when a shooter showed up at a pizza parlor in Washington DC with a rifle—internet conspiracies can have real-world consequences.

Arthur and his team didn’t begin the hunt for pedophiles with Qanon in mind, but Arthur has thanked the Qanon community in several videos and, on June 3, the VOP’s official Facebook page posted a link to a Qanon 8Chan thread. “Post all photos gathered as evidence,” the post said. The 8chan thread contained numerous references to Qanon, the Illuminati, and the occult.


On June 4, Infowars guest and founder of Veterans For Child Rescue, Craig Sawyer posted his take on the situation to YouTube—he thinks VOP discovered a child sex trafficking site. Sawyer has made a name for himself investigating what he says are pedophile conspiracies, and he often reposts references to Qanon and its assorted conspiracies on Gab, a Twitter alternative popular with the right. In a June 5 Facebook live video, Arthur said he didn’t want to talk to the media, and authorized Sawyer to handle media queries about the situation. I attempted to reach Sawyer for comment via Facebook and email, but didn’t hear back.

I reached Arthur by phone on June 6. “You have one minute,” he said when he picked up the phone. I got halfway through my introduction before he cut me off. “If anyone from the media has questions they have to come down and volunteer for seven days.” He then hung up the phone. I followed up via Facebook messenger but have not heard back.

Arthur has been around town demanding the police take action. On June 6, he went to the police department and streamed the interaction via Facebook live. The police politely engaged with him and promised to follow up on any leads he might find. “My city is aware of what I’m getting ready to do,” Arthur said after leaving the station. He then promised that searchers would find child pornography in the area if they would only look for it, and begged for volunteers to come to Tucson and join the cause.

Arthur, VOP's leader, is putting out missives on Facebook. He wants people to send supplies and come join what he says will be a three-month operation. On June 3, he posted a video from the top of a tower. He refused to come down until the police agreed to search the area around the homeless camp with dogs trained to find dead bodies.

This isn’t Arthur’s first time looking for attention from America’s militia movement. Arthur was at both the Bundy standoff in Nevada in 2014 and the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016.

“In a movement that’s full of drama queens, he’s the empress,” JJ MacNab—a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism—told me over the phone. “He’s not going to get the militia that he’s hoping for because he is persona non grata in that movement. He’s the only person to be kicked out of Bundy Ranch and Malheur.”

Again, the Tucson Police Department told Motherboard it has found nothing to suggest that human trafficking has happened at the site. In its videos, VOP pointed to straps of cloth bound around trees as evidence of makeshift shackles for victims. It pointed to a stroller as evidence that children had been in the area.

“Lots of times people in homeless camps will use tether straps or cloth, anything to help hang clothing, food or even trash to keep it off the ground and away from animals,” Tucson Police Sgt. Pete Dugan told Snopes. “You will see myriad types of things that they collect and use. There was a crib there that had a bunch of stuff in it along with all kinds of different things. But there was no evidence of any human trafficking or any criminal activity in that area.”

The Tucson Police Department representative also told Motherboard that the Police became aware of the camp on May 29, and went to search the area. “Detectives, and command staff conducted a thorough inspection of the site, spoke to the reporting parties, and collected evidence,” the Tucson police department said in a June 4 press release. “Based on the department’s investigation to this point, there is no indication this camp is being used for any type of criminal activity, including human trafficking. Yesterday, an unsubstantiated assertion was made that a body might be buried at the site. A cadaver dog was used to check the area with negative results.”

On June 6, in the video Arthur posted from the police station, cops revealed that they had responded to a call from concerned drivers along I-19 who saw men posted on a billboard with AR-15s overlooking the highway. The cop then explained, calmly and patiently, that the camp had been constructed by property owners sympathetic to the plight of immigrants crossing over the Mexican border. They wanted people to have a shelter along the hard trek through America. The site has since been bulldozed.

Agents with the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement had also been to the area to investigate. It told local news station KGUN that, “they are familiar with the site as a homeless camp and are continuing to monitor it. They say they have found nothing that would validate the claims of possible human trafficking.”

Yet Arthur and the VOP continue to patrol the area on the hunt for pedophiles. Arthur posted a video at 12:30 EST from a local UPS on June 6 where he showed supplies people had sent to help the mission. Some of it will go to help homeless veterans. Arthur also said he had two patrols out looking to rescue children. “We’re encouraging everyone to come down. We’ve got a lot of territory to cover,” Arthur said in a Facebook live video. “This doesn’t stop. We’re still running nonstop 24/7. If you’re sitting there wondering, ‘are we still gonna be there tomorrow,’ we’re going to be here until these individuals are found or they’re so dismantled and disrupted that they can’t do this.”

VOP is well known in the community, and has done a lot of good work, according to people who have worked with its members. Normally, VOP patrols Tucson’s highways, bridges, and tunnels for homeless veterans. When it finds someone, it does what it can to get them back on their feet. For the moment, it has shifted to chasing down internet conspiracy theories.

“Their hearts are in the right place, but I’m not sure about the method,” Bruce Hamilton, the director of Tucson Veterans Serving Veterans, told me over the phone. “I work alongside them every other day. They do great stuff.”

Hamilton said he understands VOP and Arthur’s concern but he thinks they have made a lot of assumptions about what they’ve found. “These guys are reactionary,” he said. “They’re very high strung. But they’re on a mission, they’re looking for vets all over the place but their methods are different.”

Hamilton hasn’t seen a large influx of outsiders coming to help VOP hunt down pedophiles, nor does he think the group is particularly dangerous.

But Qanon is dangerous. It’s a new spin on an old American cultural myth—cabals of elite predators who prey on children. There’s no actual evidence to back any of this up, but the fantasy has persisted online for more than a year and now it’s made the jump to real life. Arthur and VOP are patrolling the Arizona desert, chasing shadows and bothering local law enforcement, egged on by anonymous conspiracy theorists following their every move from behind a computer screen. So far, no one has been harmed, but what's happening in Tucson right now is a good reminder that the tentacles of crazy internet conspiracies reach into the real world.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywex8v/what-is-qanon-conspiracy-theory

CONSPIRACY
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By Justin Caffier
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Jun 12 2018, 5:23pm
A Guide to QAnon, the New King of Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories
George Soros, the Illuminati, and Snow White are all controlling the world according to a 4channer who has spawned a legion of supersleuths.

oseanne Barr’s recent career-ending tweetstorm didn't just lead to her eponymous sitcom being cancelled, it demonstrated what the ugliest side of the right-wing internet looks like. As the New York Times reported at the time, Barr's tweets weren't just racist, they occasionally delved into into the widening black hole of insane conspiracy theories known as QAnon.

Who or what is QAnon? Just asking that question sucks you into a world that's like Pizzagate on bath salts, a galaxy-brained, 4chan-bred conspiracy theory that has apparently convinced an alarming number of adults that all kinds of preposterous things are true.


The whole mess started on October 28, when an anonymous user going by the handle “Q” started a thread on 4chan’s /pol board titled “The Calm Before the Storm.” In a series of posts, Q claimed to be a high-level government employee with Department of Energy Q clearance and access to Top Secret–level information about Donald Trump, the Democrats, and the hidden big-picture machinations of the US government.

Wielding the plausible-enough-sounding details and sprawling shadow government plot of a lesser Dan Brown novel, Q began slowly painting a picture of a reality far different from the one we live in. The resulting QAnon conspiracy theory states that Trump is not under investigation by Robert Mueller. Instead, Trump is merely playing the part of hapless conspiratorial criminal while covertly helping the special counsel pursue their true quarry: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and all the other liberal boogeymen. (It gets a LOT crazier than that, but that's the core plot.)

All of this was spelled out through cryptic hints, which seems to be half the fun for people who get into it. Before long, there were countless YouTube channels, subreddits, and message boards dedicated to collectively piecing his hints together with digital red string. One QAnon-based subreddit has more than 31,000 subscribers. On YouTube, QAnon-themed videos can have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of views. It's even bled out into the real world, with conspiracy theorists claiming they had found pedophile camps in the Arizona desert. So this nonsense isn't likely to go away any time soon.

To sort out what this web of spurious claims consists of—and to help you identify when someone is dipping their toes into it—here's a guide to the conspiracy.

Crumbs/Breadcrumbs

Not wishing to divulge too much information and risk potential exposure, Q drip-feeds their followers with info dumps called “breadcrumbs” so that, just like Hansel and Gretel, these theorists can be led out of the forest of fake news. The very existence of these crumbs raises questions about why someone purporting to wage a righteous and successful campaign against evil would leak anything, let alone easily crackable clues that could compromise their anonymity or the overall mission, but that line of reasoning doesn’t seem to be a concern for QAnon’s acolytes.

Bakers

As followers of Q’s breadcrumb trail, QAnon believers refer to themselves as bakers, conveying both their commitment to the cause and a fundamental misunderstanding of how bakeries work.

Dough

Dough is the sum total of all the leads, answers, and concrete info gleaned from previously collected and analyzed crumbs dropped by Q. Bakers “bake” this dough by creating new threads online that puzzle out the most recent crumb drops. Some bakers, clearly not catching on to the Hansel and Gretel symbolism, have been known to refer to this dough as “batter.”


Stringers

Sometimes Q likes to play pretend as Mr. Robot and drops crumbs presented like a bunch of Alex Jones cue cards or unintuitive file names. These are called "stringers" and with each new post Q sends his followers on goose chases to find the greater meanings.

Two real stringer examples:

Helicopter.
CRASH.
Newport Beach.
Hotel GM.
What happened @ these hotels?

_27-1_yes_USA94-2
_27-1_yes_USA58-A
_27-1_yes_USA04
_Conf_BECZ_y056-(3)_y
The_Castle_Runs_RED_yes
Godspeed.


The Storm

This phrase stems from a cryptic October 8 musing from President Trump while he was surrounded by military brass at a photo opp. Trump opined that the relatively uneventful moment was “the calm before the storm.” This, of course, prompted the journos on hand to press the president about what that meant. He offered no further explanation other than an equally cryptic “you’ll find out.”

While Trump, a known bullshitter, was clearly just pulling generic vaguely-intimidating phrases from his ass to sound cool, this moment resonated with Q, clearly inspiring his initial /pol post a couple of weeks later.

Bakers have since come to regard the Storm as the overarching heroic operation being carried out by Trump et al to take down the deep state villains, liberal pedophile rings, and all the money-loving globalists/Jews working behind the scenes to oppress the hapless average American.

Bakers find proof of the Storm’s effects and validity with every news article where any sort of human trafficker or child predator is apprehended. Thwarting pedophiles, an ongoing mission ferried over from the less organized Pizzagate era of right-wing conspiracy theorizing, seems to be a borderline fetish for this crowd.

Lightning emoji

This is just a way for QAnon people to refer to the Storm when they want to save characters or be cute with their usernames.

Clowns

The foot soldier goons of the QAnon-verse, clowns are the CIA agents, NSA operatives, and various other spooks attempting to suss out Q’s identity and bring the Storm’s mission to a halt. Bakers will often “expose” clowns they think have been planted in their forums.

Great Awakening

Borrowing from the term for different periods of Christian revival throughout American history, the QAnon Great Awakening will be the pre-Storm era of enlightenment achieved by bakers who successfully crack Q’s hints. While not always overt, a vein of Christo-fascism runs through the QAnon narrative. “Godspeed” is a common valediction offered in Q’s crumbs or between bakers. This subtext of noble Christian supremacy helps to bolster the latent anti-Semitic and Islamophobic elements of the conspiracy’s big picture.

Really, though, this Great Awakening is just “red-pilling” for people who believe themselves to be above something as low-brow as a term from The Matrix.

Follow the White Rabbit

Try as they might, these folks can’t resist references to the Wachowski siblings' sci-fi trilogy and Q, borrowing the directives given via computer screen to Neo in The Matrix, has craftily urged his horde to follow the white rabbit. The white rabbit in question could represent anything from the Playboy bunny and Hugh Heffner to the Catholic Church to a New Orleans artist with the last name Podesta—no relation to John—who happens to work with bunny-suited mannequins.

Alice and Wonderland

Why stop at white rabbit when there’s so much more to mine from Lewis Carroll’s stories? While some bakers have referred to Obama as Alice, most steer clear of such gender-bending casting and assign that role to Hillary Clinton. And where else would her Wonderland be than Saudi Arabia, a magical land full of hookahs and Clinton Foundation payoffs?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

There doesn’t seem to be a consensus in the QAnon community about who these recurring codenames refer to. Some say Snow White is Julian Assange, others believe it's the CIA. Some think the dwarfs are targets being eliminated by the storm, others think they are seven supercomputers operated by the intelligence community.

Surprisingly, this last bit does have one foot in reality. At the dawn of the computing age, from the 1950s to 70s, IBM and seven other manufacturers (e.g. Honeywell, RCA, UNIVAC) worked on major mainframe computation projects for government agencies. At the time, IBM, the biggest player of the bunch, was referred to as Snow White, with each of the other company machines taking on a nickname of one of the Disney dwarves. Over time, conspiracy theorists have mythologized these powerful computers into Hal 9000–style villains autonomously pulling strings or being controlled by nefarious deep state brass.

Operation Mockingbird

This is the alleged CIA plot dating back to the 1950s wherein the agency gained control of the media in order to control the masses via propaganda. Every Washington Post article about potential Russian collusion is Operation Mockingbird. Robert Deniro saying “fuck Trump” at the Tonys: Operation Mockingbird. This article: 100 percent Operation Mockingbird.

 The Triangle

QAnon is essentially the greatest crossover event in conspiracy theory history. Q folds in references to all the greatest hits like Freemasons, MK Ultra, and the symbology of the Illuminati. The triangle, a staple of Illuminati lore, plays into Q’s story as a representation of the three mega-wealthy families that control the entire world. These are often represented as plus signs for some reason, despite there being no mystery within or outside of the community as to what those plusses represent.

So, just who are these powers that be? Well, you probably already guessed Soros (+). Q has also dusted off the oldie-but-goodie Rothschilds (++). The third and final contender is the House of Saud (+++), the ruling royals of Saudi Arabia.

Family (Y)

Ever the storyteller, Q has insinuated that the Soros clan overthrew a fourth, unnamed powerful family to take their spot as the third-richest lineage on the planet and has left it up to the bakers to figure out just which famous family that might be. Theorists have yet to collectively determine who Y is, but current contenders for the title include the Bushes, the Rockefellers, and *record scratch*—the Merkels?!

The Titanic and the Olympic

Apparently, JP Morgan sunk the Titanic— that he’d actually switcheroo’d with a copy ship, the Olympic—in order to found the federal reserve. (Just go with it.)

This fringier topic only comes up occasionally in the QAnon bubble, as Q has never directly referenced it in a crumb, but I’m including it here anyway it because it's A) hilarious and B) a great example of how the bakers have folded in every preexisting conspiracy into their gumbo of insanity.


Photo via Anonymous
Fantasy Land
The cabal of evil countries controlled by the Triangle want the world permanently on the brink of nuclear apocalypse. What better a way to keep the world’s population docile and controllable? But for that they need a scapegoat threat. So they formed a new nation and installed a “madman” puppet leader that can easily be controlled to keep the ruse alive. According to the bakers, this is what the CIA did with North Korea and the Kim family.


Screengrab via YouTube: Screen Hoopla
Ankle Monitors
According to QAnon boards, the Storm has already busted some lower-tier deep state consiglieres like Huma Abedin, Chelsea Clinton, and John McCain. But in the good guys’ infinite mercy, they’ve decided to allow these evildoers—who they have accused of facilitating the kidnapping, rape, and murder of children—to go about their day-to-day lives as normal, so long as they wear ankle monitors. This has resulted in every photo of QAnon conspiracy villain in a maxi dress, orthopedic boot, or flared pant leg to be scrutinized in an attempt to see if someone is attempting to hide their tracker.

BDT is an acronym for Blunt and Direct Time as well as the Bangladeshi taka, the country's unit of currency. I really have no clue what they’re going for with this one. Something about some thwarted potential terrorist being born in Bangladesh as proof of Q’s bona fides?


Godfather III

Another unsolved topic with a few competing theories, some say Q’s references to the papacy-centric Coppola film are meant to implicate the Catholic church in the global pedo ring. Others think it’s about how the Rothschilds own the Vatican after lending them some money in the 1800s. Some just think it’s an allegory for the whole swamp draining thing.

Whatever the connection to his larger tapestry, master troller Q got a bunch of dummies to watch a bad three-hour movie searching for clues and, for that, I doff my cap. Keep up the good work, Q.

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Anthony Greene and Truckers Against Predators is the latest wannabe vigilante group trying to make names for themselves

This douchebag is Anthony Green and his PJ Wannabe site is Truckers Against Pedophiles. He should be locked up for engaging in illegal sting activities. He should also be arrested for trying to incite a riot. Fuck this piece of shit.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/07/18/a-st-louis-trucker-is-on-a-mission-to-trap-pedophiles-hes-already-bagged-6

A St. Louis Trucker Is on a Mission to Trap Pedophiles. He's Already Bagged 6
Posted By Danny Wicentowski on Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 8:53 am

It was past 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and from behind the camera of his smartphone, professional trucker and newbie pedophile hunter Anthony Green observes his target pull up in a white pickup truck. He follows the truck to a BP gas station parking lot in north St. Louis.

The trap has been laid, and now Green is ready to spring it shut.

"There he is," he says into the camera, which is streaming the footage to Facebook and thousands of viewers. "He's a sick-looking fuck."

A St. Louis native and founder of Truckers Against Predators, Green performed five prior stings between launching the group July 7 and that morning's livestream. It was third to take place in St. Louis. The sting locations have followed Green's trucking routes, resulting in recorded operations in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri.

In St. Louis on Saturday, the target of the early-morning sting is a 46-year-old man, a local bartender "into BDSM," Green tells the viewers, adding that the man had brought along condoms — sheepskin — for a supposed tryst with a fourteen-year-old girl. The girl, of course, is actually a decoy working with Green. With the camera in selfie mode, Green describes to his audience how the man had texted about his desire to take the girl's virginity and have anal sex.

In the span of little more than a week, Green has confronted multiple targets in parking lots, berating and shaming them in front of a growing online audience. In one case, in Texas, the target left the scene in police handcuffs.

Each time, Green tells the men they are being filmed "for your safety and mine." In some cases, his videos show these men admitting what they'd done. Others deny and deflect, or cry, begging Green to give them another chance.

In the footage from Saturday, Green flips the camera view to the front-facing mode, which reveals the target of the sting: a clean-shaven, middle-aged man with a distinctively curled black mustache. (Since he has not been charged with a crime, RFT is not naming him.)

Green, camera rolling, greets the man by name. The man halts.

"You and me need to talk," Green tells him. "You know, the things you were worried about when you talking to the decoy..."

"Goddamit," the man says in a deflated voice.

It's an exchange that should be familiar to anyone who's seen To Catch a Predator — especially that iconic TV moment when host Chris Hansen emerges from a side room, and the cameras zoom in on the suddenly sweat-slicked face of a man realizing he's walked into a trap, as Hansen drops the now-infamous line, "Why don't you take a seat right over there."

Green doesn't use the line, and he's certainly no ultra-composed, TV-ready reporter like Hansen. On the Facebook video from Saturday, Green opens by telling the man that he's not a cop, but then adds, "I work with police."

Then Green really lays into him:

"The fuck are you thinking man? Did you read the things you were saying to this girl? We could totally take everything to your boss and everything else. I'm interested in why in the hell you're trying to ruin a little girl's life that's a virgin."

The man with the mustache just stands there, taking Green's verbal barrage. He drops his head to his chest, repeating, "I don't know man, I don't know."

 Anthony Green, the trucker behind Truckers Against Predators. - SCREENSHOT VIA FACEBOOK

Reached by phone a few days after the sting, Green explains that he's a longtime fan of citizen-led efforts to identify and publicly shame child predators, especially a group called The Ultimate Decoy. Dozens of other groups are active across the U.S. and overseas, with the hunters generally uploading videos of confrontations with men — and it's always men — who are lured into the trap by decoys acting as minors.

"I just feel like there's a movement, there's at least twenty different hunter teams in the country," he says. "We just based ours around trucking because that’s what I do."

Indeed, Green follows a long line of similar efforts. The most prominent, NBC's To Catch a Predator, had just a two-year run from 2006 to 2008 before being canceled in the wake of a target, a prosecutor, committing suicide. The Internet group NBC worked with, Perverted Justice, had a track record predating the show, and boasted more than 100 convictions.

But the show came under heavy criticism. Beyond the civil rights issues, an expert later told the New Republic, it was simply dangerous. “We see situations that in a second turn volatile,” James Drylie, a professor of criminal justice at Kean University, told the magazine. “Imagine hearing: ‘lights, camera, action, you’re on TV.’ A person can just explode — they’re looking to escape and they’ll use any means.”

That hasn't happened yet to Green. (He says he carries a firearm for protection during the stings.) It also doesn't take a TV production to seek out targets. It's depressingly easy.

Here's how Green sets up a sting: First, decoys identifying themselves as adult women will post on various social media and messaging apps — apps like MeetMe, Whispr, Musicly.ly, MeetMe, LiveMe and Plenty of Fish, he alleges, are "terrible safe havens for pedophiles." These initial posts aren't explicitly geared towards predators, but rather offer an innocuous invitation, something like a 26-year-old woman in town for a night and looking to hang out.

"Within ten minute we'll get 80 to 100 responses," Green says. After two or three messages, however, the decoy "reveals" that she's not 26, but fourteen. At that point, about 50 percent of the respondents stop communicating, Green says.

Overall, Green claims that his decoys are currently working 100 concurrent conversations, all with men who appear interested in meeting up with girls only a few years older than Green's own twelve-year-old daughter.

After the initial contact, the decoys arrange a meeting — always a public place, preferably late at night or early in the morning, to reduce the possibility of bystanders interfering, Green says.

He adds, "It’s definitely dangerous." Green claims that he consulted St. Louis police officers before launching Truckers Against Predators earlier this month. An officer told him not to get involved, he says, for the sake of his own safety.

But Green says the risk is worth it. The trucker says he himself was sexually abused as a child, and he believes that citizen-led hunter groups are doing vital work, raising awareness that predators exist online and in real life, in great numbers, and that they're constantly looking for victims.

"These people are your neighbors," Green says. "Whenever I meet one of these guys, I feel like I've actually saved a child that night. And instead of them meeting up with a little kid, they meet up with a 350-pound man."

For Green, perhaps the hardest part of the job is keeping his cool when getting face-to-face with the sort of person who would drive to a gas station at 2:30 a.m. with condoms and the intention of taking a fourteen-year-old girl's virginity.

On Saturday night, Green admits, he lost his composure. On the video — which, as of this writing, has nearly 40,000 views — he spends more than ten minutes castigating his target, telling him that he'll likely be raped in prison and that maybe he should just jump off a bridge.

At one point, Green threatens to call the cops to the gas station if the man keeps evading his questions. Later, Green appears to yell toward some bystanders, informing them that the man had tried to have sex with a fourteen-year-old. Off-camera, someone shouts back, "Knock his ass out!" and "You should be killed motherfucker!" and "Cut his balls off!" 

"Do you know how bad I want to turn this camera off right now," Green asks the man. "There's no curing people like you. None. No fucking cure." 

During his later interview, Green tells RFT that he regrets involving the bystanders and that he won't do it again — not out of sympathy for the target of the sting, but because one of those bystanders could have taken matters into their own hands. That wouldn't be good for Green.

"If someone would have hurt him, I would have been held responsible," Green says. Still, he understands the impulse to hurt predators. Considering his own experience as a sex-abuse victim, he says that if he was in the bystander's position, "I might take a swing at him. I might." 

Green maintains that he's not a vigilante, and that he's not out to bring violent retribution on the predators he hunts. He wants arrests. However, to date, only one man — a target in Texas — has left the scene of a sting in police custody.

"I'm working closely with police to try to attain arrests," Green says. "If a DA doesn't want to pick up charges because I'm not a police officer, then what I'm going to do is not expose them live. What I'm going to do is still expose them, but I’m still going to give all of the chat logs to the police up front, beforehand, so they can do their sting."

Reached Monday by email, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Woodling says that the department is aware of the Saturday incident.

"We have nothing further at this time as the investigation is ongoing," she writes.

It's not clear whether Green's sting operations will lead to charges in Missouri. The state statute defining the crime of Enticement of a Child seems expressly written to exclude non-police sting operations. The statute includes a provision that reads, "It is not a defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section that the other person was a peace officer masquerading as a minor." So what if the other person isn't a police officer at all? Is that a defense? Would the evidence gathered prior to the live-streamed confrontation give police legal cover to arrest the perp, or, for that matter, for a prosecutor to issue charges?

Green thinks it should.

"The law is kind of gray," he admits. "If the police don’t want to pick up prosecution, then we’re going to go to the public and get 100, 200,000 signatures and we’re going to go to the state legislature to try to get the law changed."

Yet even in the absence of prosecution, Green is making an impact. According to people posting on the Saturday video, the mustachioed man is an employee of several local bars, most recently Hendrick's BBQ in St. Charles. A manager there Monday hangs up on a reporter when asked about the man by name. Hendrick's told a concerned citizen who reached out via private message that the man was no longer an employee.

For Green, the social result — the public awareness — makes his own efforts worthwhile, even the guy doesn't end up behind bars.

"I feel like internet justice is sometimes is better than criminal justice," he says. "These men are not innocent; they are attempting to meet a child for sexual activity. I'm not a vigilante, and jail is really what I want, but I definitely think there’s a big value of the internet exposures. Maybe more so than jail."

Judge to Vukovich: "Vigilantism is not something that we accept in America"

This scumbag got 23 years for his 3 attacks.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/02/26/anchorage-man-who-attacked-sex-offenders-sentenced-to-23-years-in-prison/

Anchorage man who attacked sex offenders sentenced to 23 years in prison
Author: Tegan Hanlon  clock Updated: 12 hours ago  calendar Published 17 hours ago


At an Anchorage Superior Court hearing for Jason Vukovich, who was sentenced Monday for attacking three registered sex offenders, his older brother Joel Fulton said that despite counseling, he has not yet recovered from what the two men experienced as children.

"I'm never going to get better — never," said Fulton, who has a successful career in cybersecurity in California.

At the two-day hearing that started Friday, Vukovich's lawyer, Ember Tilton, argued for a more lenient sentence for his 42-year-old client, who attacked three men in June 2016, saying to a victim he was an "avenging angel" for abused children. Tilton said Vukovich continues to suffer through mental and emotional turmoil resulting from a childhood of physical and sexual abuse.

But the prosecutor, Patrick McKay, argued that there was no excuse for Vukovich to target and attack three strangers, beating one man so badly with a hammer that he fractured his skull and knocked him unconscious.

"We're lucky we're not dealing with a murder charge," Assistant District Attorney Patrick McKay told the judge. "People do not get to take the law into their own hands just because they don't like a particular group of people or a particular person."

As part of a plea deal, Vukovich had previously agreed to plead guilty to first-degree attempted assault and a consolidated count of first-degree robbery. In turn, prosecutors agreed to dismiss more than a dozen other charges against him stemming from the attacks.

Early Monday afternoon, Superior Court Judge Erin Marston handed down his sentence to Vukovich: 25 years in prison, five years fewer than the maximum. He also sentenced Vukovich to five years' probation.

"Vigilantism is not something that we accept in America," he told Vukovich. "It's not something that we accept in this community and it is just simply something that will not be tolerated."

The men Vukovich singled out and attacked were complying with the law, Marston said. They had gone through the court system, received their sentences and put their names on Alaska's public sex offender registry, where Vukovich found their addresses.

"It was not the purpose of the registry to allow people to do their own brand of justice," Marston told Vukovich. "The purpose of the registry was to keep the community safe."

McKay said that in the summer of 2016, Vukovich, recently released from jail, carried a notebook with a list of nine names that he planned to target. Vukovich said he collected the names from acquaintances. He said they told him the people were "pedophiles."

Over five days in June, Vukovich entered the homes of three of the men, uninvited. He hit two of them with his fists, and another man with a hammer. The attack left that victim with a lasting traumatic brain injury. It's hard for him to string words into sentences. He lost his job. He can't pay his rent.

"My life is changed forever," he told the judge.

McKay said Vukovich also stole from the three men he attacked.

On Monday, Vukovich apologized.

"I realize now that I had no business assaulting these individuals or taking the law into my own hands," he said. "I should have sought mental health counseling before I exploded."

Vukovich has cycled into and out of jail for decades.

As a child, he said, he and his siblings were abused by his adoptive father, Larry Lee Fulton.

"He was a pretty terrible person in general," Vukovich told the judge. "He liked to administer beatings with various implements — belts, eventually a two-by-four that he had custom-made — and he used to like to disrupt the night by coming in to sexually assault (me)."

Fulton was found guilty of second-degree abuse of a minor and in 1989 received a three-year suspended sentence — meaning he didn't have to serve any active time in a prison cell.

Vukovich's older brother, Joel Fulton, eventually ran away from home and later he did the same.

Their paths diverged.

Fulton went to college and later got a PhD. He lives in California with his family, where he said he has good job as the chief information security officer at a data analytics software company. He said he still receives counseling to deal with the trauma of being physically and sexually abused as a child.

Vukovich turned to drugs and crime.

Vukovich told the judge that he regularly used methamphetamine. He has eight prior felony convictions, McKay said.

Fulton told the judge he wasn't friends with Vukovich and had spoken to him at most twice over the past two decades. Still, he said he wanted to help him and he asked the court system to do the same.

"Have mercy on him," Fulton told the judge. "Help him."

While Judge Marston expressed sympathy for the brothers' childhood experiences, he said Vukovich has ultimately proved he is dangerous and "willing to hurt people."

Idiots in Ireland & the UK are wanting their registries to be made public. These vigilante scumbags are the reason why

Vigilante douche George Keenan did not like a dose of his own medicing

The BBC exposed a few of these scumbags. It is amazing that any loser believes that these pathetic excuses of humanity are "heroes." Al they have proven, however is that vigilantes are all cowards yet they are prone to violence. Sharon Shanks and George Keenan are among those exposed as filthy scumbags in this BBC report. By the way, one of these vigilante scumbags has been arrested and will be prosecuted, with more to follow. Round these thugs up!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-43024711

Self-styled 'paedophile hunters' revealed
By Kevin Magee
BBC News NI investigations correspondent

Some of the leaders of self-styled paedophile-hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland have been identified for the first time.

There are increasing concerns about the methods many of the groups use, and their lack of accountability.

The so-called paedophile-hunting groups target people online who they believe are sexual predators.

They confront them and broadcast the encounter live on the internet, then call the police.

There have been more than 100 incidents of that nature reported to police in Northern Ireland, but no-one has been charged as a result and there have been no convictions.

Former senior police officer and child protection expert Jim Gamble warned that some of the tactics used by the groups are criminal.

"Anyone live streaming these incidents is not about the justice of catching someone who represents a threat to children," he said.

"They are about the self-publicity and the self-centred approach about themselves, much more than about making children safer."

All of the groups keep their identities hidden.

'On whose authority?'

BBC News NI approached two of the people involved in setting up the "hunting groups" in Northern Ireland to ask them for an interview.

Sharon Shanks, from south Belfast, is behind the group called Justice Reborn Northern Ireland and she uses the alias Chelsea Lewis.

Ms Shanks declined to do an interview, saying in an online message that she was unhappy that "journalists and news stations have so far called the hunting groups vigilantes".

"Our identity we keep to ourselves so meeting isn't an option," she said.

During one confrontation that she posted live online, Ms Shanks is overheard using explicit offensive language and threats of violence against a man who came across the scene.

When approached by the BBC just after she had broadcast other live footage on Facebook of herself interrogating a man she had alleged was a paedophile, Ms Shanks refused to answer our questions.

We wanted to ask about the methods her secret group used, and on whose authority she had been detaining people who she believed to be paedophiles.

She declined to answer any questions.

Instead, Ms Shanks pulled on a scarf and was driven way at speed.

There are up to 10 different, self-appointed paedophile hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland.

Often they are in competition with one another, but sometimes they join forces.

'Won't answer questions'

One of those who introduced the concept of "paedophile hunting" to Northern Ireland is 34-year-old Belfast man George Keenan.

He uses the alias James SJ O'Neill and was linked to a group calling itself Silent Justice.

One of his targets last August was a man in County Antrim.

Two days after he was confronted, the man took his own life.

His family said they wanted to maintain a dignified silence.

Mr Keenan recently had a public falling out with other paedophile hunting groups in England and, in an expletive filled video, issued various threats of physical violence against them on Facebook.

Mr Keenan declined a request for an interview using his own name and identity.

BBC News NI approached him in west Belfast to ask him on whose authority he was confronting people he thought were paedophiles.

When asked if any of his actions resembled those of a vigilante, he replied: "Are you serious? Get out of my sight, leave me alone.

"Stay away from anybody that I have previously worked with.

"You are harassing people, I am not here to answer your questions.

"You are absolutely disgusting. Get out of my space right now."

Later the same day, Mr Keenan led a group of people to confront BBC investigations reporter Kevin Magee in a coffee shop in Belfast.

Mr Keenan claimed he had been able to mobilise more than a dozen people from various paedophile hunting groups.

For a short time they blocked off Botanic Avenue and published the episode online.

Eyewitness account: 'Terrible, outrageous behaviour'

A mother-of-two has told of her terror when her home was mistakenly surrounded by a group of masked paedophile hunters.

The self-appointed gang surrounded the house in the Springfarm estate in Antrim in January, claiming that a paedophile was living there.

But the group had made a mistake - they had picked the wrong house.

The 34-year-old woman, who asked not to be named, said she was "absolutely terrified" when members of the gang approached her home.

Her 66-year-old mother and two young children, aged seven and three, were in the house with her.

"A crowd of people got out of cars and they started banging and kicking at my front door - one of the women was screaming," she said.

"They were all saying there was a paedophile in the house, but there was no man in the house, just me, my kids and my mother.

"It was terrible, it really was outrageous behaviour - we felt really intimidated.

"One of the children was hiding under the bed and my mother was petrified and shaken afterwards.

"Now she doesn't want to leave the house."

The woman had only recently moved into the house.

'Job for police'

Neighbourhood watch co-ordinator Seamus Davis went to the house when he heard the commotion.

He said: "There were three or four cars full of people.

"I said: 'Look you're in the wrong place' - and they called me a paedophile lover.

"I told them I hate paedophiles as much as anybody else, but this way you are doing is totally wrong - this is a job for the police.

"You are behaving like a bunch of vigilantes."

The registry inspires yet another man to kill, this time in Nevada

How many more people need to say this before pro-registry schmucks finally admit the registry promotes violence?

https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/homicides/las-vegas-man-says-he-killed-over-dislike-of-sex-offenders-report-says/

Las Vegas man says he killed over dislike of sex offenders, report says

By Mike Shoro Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 21, 2018 - 12:17 pm

A Las Vegas man told his neighbor he killed two homeless people behind a central-valley swap meet because one of them was a sex offender, court documents show.

“The neighbor explained he had been sexually assaulted as a child and took offense to sex offenders,” 32-year-old Michael Thompson’s arrest report said.

Prosecutors charged Thompson with two counts of murder Thursday in the Dec. 26 shooting deaths of Rhonda Ballow, 27, and Alfred Wilhelm, 53, court records show. Thompson remained in Clark County Detention Center on Friday evening.

Detectives learned that a woman’s neighbor told her he killed a man and a woman behind the swap meet on the 2900 block of West Washington Avenue, near Rancho Drive, according to the arrest report.

The neighbor told the woman he killed the man because he was a sex offender and killed the woman because she refused to leave, the report said.

Nevada sex offender registry information shows Wilhelm was convicted of first-degree rape in Hawaii in April 1984.

The woman told police she didn’t believe her neighbor at the time because of his substance usage habits. Through her story, the report said, nearby security footage and other witness accounts, police identified Thompson as a suspect.

A Las Vegas city marshal told police other people who lived near the swap meet named Thompson as the shooter. The report said a witness said he watched a man matching Thompson’s description shoot Wilhelm twice. The witness and another man ran off and heard more gunshots. They met up with Thompson and exchanged cigarettes.

The witness returned to the area about 45 minutes later, the report said.

“(He) observed Rhonda crawling down the loading dock ramp asking for help,” the report said.

The witness told police he didn’t see her during the initial gunshots and didn’t know she was shot. He left and didn’t call for help, the report said.

Police initially spoke with Thompson on Jan. 5 after a witness to the shooting spotted him inside a convenience store, the report shows. Homicide detectives briefly spoke with Thompson and asked for a DNA sample. Thompson said he had heard of the homicide but had no information on it. He also declined to provide a sample.

After further investigation, police arrested Thompson on Jan. 16. The report said he told police he didn’t leave his house the night of the shooting. Thompson asked for a lawyer once police said they saw him on security footage near the swap meet at the time of the shooting.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.

Alaska vigilante wants his arrest to serve as a deterrent to other vigilantes

I'm skeptical this man feels any real remorse, except maybe remorse at not getting away with it. Hopefully, he'll get the full 25 years to figure it out. 

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/01/01/anchorage-man-who-attacked-sex-offenders-says-he-wants-his-story-to-serve-as-a-deterrent/

Anchorage man who attacked sex offenders says he wants his story ‘to serve as a deterrent’
pencil Author: Tegan Hanlon  clock Updated: 3 hours ago  calendar Published 3 hours ago

An Anchorage man who attacked three registered sex offenders last year said he wants his story "to serve as a deterrent" to anyone tempted to turn their pain into violence or take the law into their own hands.

That's what he did in the summer of 2016. He now faces up to 25 years in prison.

"If you have already lost your youth, like me, due to a child abuser, please do not throw away your present and your future by committing acts of violence," Jason Vukovich wrote in a five-page letter sent to the Anchorage Daily News in November.

For the past year and a half, Vukovich's case has moved through the Alaska court system. He agreed to plead guilty to first-degree attempted assault and a consolidated count of first-degree robbery. In turn, prosecutors agreed to dismiss more than a dozen other charges against him as part of a plea deal, according to court records.

Vukovich is now awaiting his sentencing, which is currently scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. However, his attorney has recently requested more time to prepare, so the court date will likely be pushed further into 2018.

In the meantime, 42-year-old Vukovich said his views have transformed since last year. In both the November letter and an interview at the Anchorage jail in December, he said he wants to correct a message he communicated last fall, when he sent another letter to ADN and proposed an unconventional plea deal from his jail cell.

Then, he said he would plead guilty to the 2016 assaults on one condition: that his sentence be no longer than the combined prison terms of his three "alleged victims" — all of them listed on Alaska's public sex offender registry for crimes related to children — plus the sentence given to the man who Vukovich says molested him as a child.

Now, Vukovich says he wants to tell people, "There is no place for vigilante justice in an ordered society."

He said he also wants to deter others from following the path he did. He said he was abused physically and sexually as a child. He never got help and had "no self-worth." He turned to crime and cycled in and out of jail cells for decades.

"I'm far from perfect — a flawed and imperfect individual like everyone else," he said during an interview in a small room in the Anchorage jail. "However, it's important to me that someone else who was born and raised in Alaska who had a similar upbringing doesn't end up with this outcome because quite candidly, it sucks."

Three attacks

In December, Vukovich wore a yellow prison uniform, his arms covered in tattoos, his dark hair slicked back. Three teardrops are tattooed under his left eye; he says they stand for "the three doors of the mind." Above his right eye, there's a Latin phrase, which he said means "fraternity of angels."

Prosecutors say that in June 2016 Vukovich carried a notebook with a list of names, including Charles Albee, Andres Barbosa and Wesley Demarest. Over five days, he entered the homes of the three men, uninvited, and hit them, sometimes with his fists and in the case of Demarest, with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. He also stole from them, taking items including a truck and a laptop, according to a bail memorandum signed by assistant district attorney Patrick McKay.

In an interview last year, Demarest said Vukovich called himself the "avenging angel" for children hurt by abusers.

Vukovich told police that he targeted his victims based on their listings on Alaska's sex offender registry, according to the memorandum. The online registry includes their home addresses, work addresses and convictions.

Vukovich carried out his first attack the day after he got out of jail.

He said he had heard about the three men "through the grapevine," but did not know them personally. He said he felt like he had to confront them.

"I thought back to my experiences as a child and felt the overwhelming desire to act," he wrote in his November letter. "I took matters into my own hands and assaulted three pedophiles."

A history of crime

Vukovich was born in Anchorage in 1975.

He said he never knew his biological father. Around age 4, his mother's husband adopted him and, he said, later abused him.

"Both of my parents were dedicated Christians and had us in every church service available, two or three each week," he wrote. "So you can imagine the horror and confusion I experienced when this man who adopted me began using late, late night 'prayer' sessions to molest me. Also, he beat me with a custom made 2×4."

Vukovich identified his adoptive father as Larry Lee Fulton. A court document filed by Vukovich's attorney in an earlier criminal case also details his childhood of abuse and molestation by "Mr. Fulton." A 1989 Anchorage Daily News article said Fulton was found guilty of second-degree abuse of a minor but received a three-year suspended sentence — meaning he didn't have to serve any active time in a prison cell.

Vukovich wrote that after the sentencing, his family moved to Wasilla and he was homeschooled. He said he received no counseling; no one ever checked in.

"When I was a little kid in my house, if some tatted-up guy would have kicked the door in and beat up the guy that was molesting me, I would have said … 'Yeah! Woo! I knew it! I can't believe it! Thank God,'" he said. "Because nobody cared."

His brother ran away, he said, and later he did the same.

Vukovich's mother could not be reached for this article. According to a letter she sent Vukovich in jail this year, Fulton is dead, his ashes scattered in Alaska.

Vukovich said he moved to Washington state around age 16 with no form of identification. He started to steal to support himself, mostly from gyms where he knew people left their wallets unattended.

"From that point on, I turned into a thief," he said.

He said he was arrested for the first time about five months after he got to Washington. Then again nine months later. He said he worried that if he went to a homeless shelter or somewhere else to get help, they would call his parents and send him home to Alaska. So he kept stealing.

"Being a thief and a liar fit nicely with my lack of self-worth, my silent understanding that I was worthless, a throw away," he wrote in his letter. "The foundations laid in my youth never went away."

Vukovich said he spent later years moving often, following construction jobs. If he got laid off, he would return to stealing.

"Time and again, my choices reflect a lack of concern for myself and others," he wrote. "Many, many nights I simply wanted to die."

According to court documents filed in Alaska, Vukovich has a criminal history in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and California. Vukovich said he moved back to Alaska about a decade ago.

Here, he has been convicted for a string of charges including theft, possession of a controlled substance and assaulting his then-wife. Asked in December about the 2008 assault charge, he denied abusing his wife or their two children. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

"She and I probably had a couple of wrestling matches," Vukovich said.

'A simple man'

Vukovich described himself as "a simple man."

"I'm a complete and utter failure by worldly standards, but I've learned a lot," he said in the jail interview.

His attorney, Ember Tilton, said he believed Vukovich should be under some type of correctional supervision "for a very long time," receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and participate in a program for violent offenders. He did not believe his client should be treated like a number and handed a "cookie-cutter" sentence.

"I don't think he needs to be punished," he said. "He's already been punished. This whole thing started out as the punishment of a child who didn't deserve to be treated in that way."

When people don't have the opportunity to address childhood issues, he said, they don't behave well. Vukovich certainly didn't, but he needs help, he said.

"The cycle will continue in society, not just for Mr. Vukovich, but for others if we can't do something to stop it," he said.

McKay, the prosecutor in the case, said Friday it was not be appropriate for him to comment on Vukovich's letter or the upcoming sentencing at that time.

Demarest, one of the men Vukovich attacked, said that he would prefer it if Vukovich "is not walking around while I'm alive."

Demarest said he has a lasting traumatic brain injury. It's hard for him to string words into sentences. He lost his job. He can't pay his rent.

"It just pretty well destroyed my life," he said. "So, he got what he wanted I guess."

Vukovich said he did not intend to injure Demarest as seriously as he did and "regrets that deeply."

He said he hopes one day to have some freedom, but what's important to him is to share his story so people avoid the "pitfalls" and "traps" he walked into when he channeled his pain and hate into crime. He advised people who have suffered abuse to talk to someone who loves them, not to act out.

"I began serving my life sentence many, many years ago, it was handed down to me by an ignorant, hateful, poor substitute for a father," Vukovich wrote.

"I now face losing most of the rest of my life due to a decision to lash out at people like him. To all those who have suffered like I have, love yourself and those around you, this is truly the only way forward."