Founded in 2008, ABSOLUTE ZERO UNITES is a blog covering corrupt politicians and vigilantes who abuse sex offense registries to commit crimes (murder, assault, harassment, vandalism). This is a journalism blog; all articles posted in this blog is covered by Fair Use under 17 USC 107. All opinions are my own, and all persons featured here are (IMHO, of course) criminals and assorted losers.
"Across the Pond" (as the British like to say), there is a very similar problem with vigilantes. According to this brief article, many vigilantes commit crimes during their vigilante actions, and vigilante groups attract domestic abusers and others with a lack of volitionakl control. Much of that behavior can be seen in the people profiled here over the years.
UK police have voiced major concerns about the activities of socalled paedophile hunters who attempt to entrap potential child sex offenders without the help of authorities.
According to the BBC, such vigiliante groups often contain members who set up fake profiles on social media, purportedly belonging to teenagers, and wait for adults to contact them.
The broadcaster says that once contact has been made they will then “confront the suspect, usually filming the operation, before handing their evidence to the police”.
This week Dan Vajzovic, of the National Police Chiefs' Council, warned against this form of activism. He claimed hunters “often divert police resources away from other offenders and often commit offences themselves during their operations”, including “extortion, blackmail and exhibiting violence against those that they are targeting”.
According to ITV News, some police “fear that the groups’ actions could interfere with surveillance operations, while the evidence they gather may not be of a high enough standard to use for prosecution” anyway.
Former police chief Jim Gamble told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in early 2018 that “masquerading as a child online should become a criminal offence to deter vigilante stings”. He also told The Telegraph this summer that such groups “attract people with domestic abuse records and coercive control. They give people the opportunity to reinvent themselves as a good person and create this status, to build a Facebook or a Twitter following.”
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said that while it had “sympathy” for those who target suspected abusers, protecting children was its “ultimate priority”.
“If someone has concerns about child safety the best way they can help is to alert the police,” the society warned.
But Paddy Tipping, the police and crime commissioner for Nottinghamshire, said in April last year that police in his area should try to form “better relationships” with vigilante groups. A recent freedom of information request filed by the BBC has shown that last year prosecutors used evidence by so-called paedophile hunters in more than 250 cases against suspected abusers.
People have applauded the actions of people claiming to have killed someone they caught in the act of committing a sex offense, and oftentimes, these accusations are not investigations. Of course, we don't know if that's the truth or an excuse to murder someone. We'll never know since there was never a full investigation of the event.
So now, everyone things they can be a hero by accusing and attacking someone. In this instance, the would be vigilante got killed for his efforts.
Leave the investigation to the cops or end up on a pine box. Choice is yours, vigi-scum!
Man shot and killed after accusing gunman’s brother of “fondling” his family member, SCSO says
October 10, 2021 at 3:33 pm CDT
By FOX13Memphis.com News Staff
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An argument over sexual misconduct left one man dead Saturday night in southwest Shelby County, according to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
SCSO said that Maurice Walker was found shot to death at 5075 Blacksmith Drive around 5:50 p.m. Saturday night.
Throughout the course of their investigation, Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputies laid out an account of what they believed happened, leading to Walker’s death.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said that Walker was driving home when he pulled over and confronted 26-year-old Denorius Butler.
Butler, 26, is charged with second-degree murder and other crimes. (SCSO)
Walker and Butler began arguing over a previous incident, in which Butler’s brother was accused of fondling a family member of Walker’s, the sheriff’s office said, leading Butler and other gunmen to open fire.
Butler and the gunmen fired dozens of rounds, hitting and killing Walker as well as striking several nearby cars and homes, according to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
Walker’s brother dragged him behind a car and returned fire, the sheriff’s office said, as Butler handed off his gun and ran inside.
Butler and Walker’s brother were taken in for questioning and Butler was charged with attempted second-degree murder.
Upon a search of Butler’s house, deputies also reported finding a total of 133.2 grams of marijuana.
I had a recent discussion with a fellow longtime anti-registry activist, and we were discussing the group that originally inspired this blog. AZUnites was originally created as a parody of a group of wannabe vigilantes called Absolute Zero United, a group abandoned eight years ago. This blog outlasted the original AZU.
I do not know exactly why they abandoned AZU, nor do I really care. Goodbye and good riddance. However, I believe they quit after realizing insults and threats and lame attempts at sabotaging the anti-registry groups were not working. They gave up and quit.
They used to call themselves the "Antis." They claimed it was short for "Anti-Pedophile" but in reality, they were simply ANTI-SOCIAL. One early article written by a former volunteer wrote a post stating there is nothing lower than an Anti. This triggered the group of these Antis, much to my delight.
Absolute Zero United members may have abandoned their trashy blog and moved onto other things, but there are other "Antis" out there even if they do not use the moniker.
Absolute Zero and their parent organization, Perverted Justice, are no more. Those who replaced them are no more, either, like Valerie Parkhurst or the Anonymous factions like LulzSec or Death Eaters or whatever Harry Potter trash they blatantly ripped off. Or, existing groups like No Peace For Predators have shifted focus to propagating batshit crazy right winger crackpot conspiracies like QAnon.
There is still one persistent little turd out there, though, who has tried hard to carry on the pathetic legacy of the Antis. It reminds me of a promo WWE wrestler Shawn Michaels made against fellow wrestler Owen Hart back in the 1990s; Shawn Michaels and HHH compared Owen Hart to the last nugget of shit that wont quite flush down the toilet, since he was the last Hart family member left in the WWE at the time. The troll who sometimes calls himself "Lucky" Larry Lynch, or at other times, a parody of my name, a family member's name, or of someone I once knew, this person is the equivalent of that unflappable nugget of excrement.
An Anti is still an Anti, and there is still no lower life form than a person who could be labeled an Anti. The persistence of the little nugget that refers to himself as "Lucky Larry" is living, unflushable proof that statement holds true today.
Garrett Osbon epitomizes the expession, "If you want to see the scum of the earth, go to any prison and wait for the shift to change." Hopefully soon he'll be an inmate in the very prison he once worked, along with his patners in crime.
Ohio prison guards tackled and then repeatedly dropped a handcuffed 20-year-old man, leaving him paralyzed
Laura A. Bischoff
The Columbus Dispatch
Seth Fletcher, 21, suffered a spinal cord injury when state prison guards tackled, handcuffed and dropped him at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He is now paralyzed from the chest down.
Guards at Chillicothe Correctional Institution tackled and then dropped a handcuffed 20-year-old man on his face over and over and failed to take seriously his complaint that he couldn't feel or move his legs.
Seth Fletcher is now paralyzed from the chest down.
But no one was charged with a crime – even after a guard bragged about paralyzing Fletcher on social media and in text messages.
Earlier this year, the Ross County prosecutor's office declined to bring criminal charges in the case. After an inquiry by the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau, Prosecutor Jeffrey Marks said he will review the recently released Department of Rehabilitation and Correction investigation for any new evidence.
Lawyer: 'Most horrific case I've seen' of law enforcement misconduct
Within days of his injury, Fletcher hired a team of lawyers and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. That case is pending.
"It is probably the most horrific case I've seen and I've been litigating police misconduct cases for 20 years," said Fletcher's attorney, James J. Harrington IV of Fieger Law in Michigan.
Due to pending litigation, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction officials declined comment about Fletcher.
Inmate death:Prison cameras show handcuffed Columbus man tackled, pushed to the ground multiple times by corrections officers
A year after Fletcher was injured, the state prisons department fired three people and gave a one-day working suspension to two staff members involved. Additionally, six others resigned and one lieutenant took medical retirement.
State investigations paint vivid details
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction released its 239-page internal investigation in response to a public records request submitted by USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. Likewise, the Ohio Highway Patrol released its 29-page investigation report in response to a records request. Here is an account of what happened according to those records.
During a strip search on April 3, 2020, guards caught Fletcher with a cigarette they suspected was laced with drugs. They handcuffed him and took him to the medical clinic shortly after 6 p.m.
The trouble started during the escort from the clinic to the segregated housing unit.
Corrections Officer Christopher Coy said Fletcher tried to pull away from him. When Coy failed to take Fletcher down with a leg sweep, he tackled the 5-foot-9-inch handcuffed man to the ground.
Fletcher said he knew right away something was terribly wrong: He couldn't move his legs and his neck hurt.
Guards picked him up, facing down, by his arms and legs and carried him back to the clinic. Nurse Krista Wooten patted his back and neck and decided Fletcher was okay to be taken back to the segregation unit.
Again, face down and handcuffed, guards carried Fletcher by his arms and legs through the yard, dropping him along the way. Staff brought out a backboard to finish the trek to the segregated housing unit, where cameras were inoperable that day.
Other guards dropped him on his face again before depositing him on a bed in a suicide watch cell. His right arm hung limply over the side of the bed. Fletcher repeatedly said, "I can't move, where am I at?"
Fletcher asked for water. Guards poured it on his face.
When Acting Capt. Ta-Rance White checked on him at 2:22 a.m., Fletcher told him he couldn't move. But White didn't take action. It wasn't until psychologist Eric Anderson visited him at 9:49 a.m. that medical help was summoned. He underwent emergency spinal surgery at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
During an interview with the patrol investigators, a corrections officer admitted that he poured water into Fletcher's mouth but some went up his nose.
Garrett Osbon, who resigned from his corrections officer job, said in text messages and on Facebook: "we also water boarded him LMAO" and "I broke a dudes nose today, yeah this was not reported, there was way too much blood so I mopped it up."
The patrol report referenced the Facebook postings. Fletcher's attorney released copies of Osbon's text messages he obtained through the lawsuit.
Osbon's bragging in text messages continued after Fletcher was taken to Ohio State Medical Center: "the dude I broke his nose is now paralyzed with a broken neck, and they say his face looks like he had been dropped and dragged through concrete, LMAO" and "It feels good to know that I played a small part in paralyzing a cho, LMAO."
"Cho" or "cho mo" is prison slang for child molester.
Fletcher was sentenced in Fulton County to two years in prison for pandering sexually-oriented material involving minors. Fletcher's attorneys said the offense involved a consensually made videotape with his girlfriend, who was a couple of years younger than Fletcher. Fletcher entered prison at age 18.
'Nobody deserves this'
Fletcher filed his federal civil rights case against two dozen Ohio prison security and nursing staff members on April 15, 2020. The Ohio Attorney General's office, which represents state agencies and employees in their official capacity, asked the court for permission to withdraw as counsel for nurse Wooten, Lt. Randolph Hester and three corrections officers who were working in the segregation housing unit: Summer Alley, Daniel Lambert and Osbon.
Lambert and Osbon resigned before the investigations concluded.
Fletcher, who is on parole and living in an Alliance-area nursing home, is a permanent quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair, Harrington said. He is now 21 years old.
"It's been very hard. It's been a struggle," said April Jacobsen, Fletcher's mother. "My son has a lot of health conditions because of this situation. It's been very costly, very expensive to just go see him."
Jacobsen said she makes the four-hour one-way trip between her home in Bryan to the nursing home once a month and she raided her 401(k) and used her stimulus to begin remodeling her house to make it wheelchair accessible so she can eventually care for him there.
Fletcher is able to talk, turn his head and lift his arms up and down. But activities he used to love, like playing guitar or mowing the lawn, are a distant memory.
"The last time I visited him, all he talked about was running. He just wanted to get up and run," she said.
Jacobsen said she wants money for her son's ongoing care and she wants the corrections officers responsible for the injury to pay. "Nobody deserves this to happen to them."
YouTube host leads police to arrest suspected sex offender in EG
By Cameron Macdonald - Citizen News Editor Aug 18, 2021 Updated Aug 18, 2021
The Elk Grove police on Aug. 11 arrested a 20-year-old man who allegedly visited Morse Community Park to have a sexual encounter with a minor in a restroom.
“Ghost,” who is a YouTube channel host and the anonymous leader of an self-described movement called, Creep Catching (CC) Unit, announced that their decoy operation led authorities to arrest Timothy Brock of Elk Grove.
CC Unit targets sexual predators online and then releases their video-recorded confrontations with them on YouTube. They also submit evidence to law enforcement in order to have the suspects arrested. The CC Unit in June reportedly led authorities to arrest a suspected sex offender in Roseville.
“The mission is to expose adults who prey on children,” Ghost told the Citizen about the CC Unit’s work. “Get these adults arrested and convicted for their crimes. Change laws to where predators get harsher punishments for their crimes against children.”
During the Elk Grove incident, the CC Unit confronted Brock at Morse Park before the police arrived. Ghost said that he then gave officers the text messages and online chats between the suspect and the decoy who posed as a 13-year-old boy.
“He was on our radar for four months,” he told the Citizen about the suspect.
Brock was arrested on felony charges of communicating with a minor to commit sex offenses, meeting with a minor for purposes of lewd behavior, and attempting to possess obscene matter of a minor in a sexual act. He is currently being held in the Sacramento County Main Jail on a $100,000 bail, according to jail records. Brock is also reportedly scheduled for a settlement conference at the Sacramento Superior Court on Aug. 25.
Elk Grove police spokesperson Hannah Gray confirmed that officers responded to the call at Morse Park and they took the suspect into custody.
“However, we highly discourage this type of activity, due to the propensity for danger,” she said about private groups targeting suspected criminals.
Gray added that her agency advises people to instead contact law enforcement to report any possible or known crimes. She mentioned the work of the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which targets sexual predators online.
Years ago, members of Perveryted Justice had admitted they were motivated by, as the put it, "the lulz" (i.e., fun, laughter, or amusement, especially that derived at another's expense, a term that hit its peak usage in the late 2000s). Not much has really changed. Modern "predator hunters" are primarily in it for the fame and for the fun of bullying people.
The Denver Post article featuring yet another group of Internet Vigilante thugs, this one named "Colorado Ped Patrol", is trying to lure an adult looking for a casual encounter. the Post adds the following:
"On this day, the man chatting with (Celeste) Hilton sent a flurry of text messages, many of them vile, about his plans for her. He told Hilton via text that he would drive from Colorado Springs to meet her at a park in Lakewood.
“I give them multiple outs. I don’t just tell them I’m 13 once. I tell them multiple times I’m 13,” she said.
This man takes the out.
Just as (Tommy) Fellows and Hilton were packing their gear for the meetup, the man texted that he wasn’t coming. His message said he was only role-playing and needed someone older than 18.
The excitement evaporated.
“That’s a bummer,” Fellows said."
The reaction to a person who says he has no desire to meet with a 13 year old should be a relief if you truly believe your goal is "protecting children." Instead, Tommy Fellows is "bummed". Why? At least partly because of money:
"When Fellows goes live on his YouTube channel, people immediately tune in. The comments, most of them cheering Fellows on, pour in. He often responds to them as he is confronting a predator, thanking them for their donations and support. People also pay between $4.99 and $19.99 a month to support his mission and receive exclusive video content."
Colorado Ped Patrol is in it for the fun and the money. These groups are simply bullies that found a way to be allowed to ply their trade in a way that gets cheers and beer money.
The Colorado Springs PD decided not to entertain Fellows. Fellows told KRDO 13, "They’ve never come out like that and said we’re not going to take care of any of your shenanigans." (In the video interview, healso claims his motivation ids because his kid was molested.) Any excuse to try to justify his behavior huh?
As noted by KRDO 13:
CSPD lieutenant James Sokolik says groups like Colorado Ped Patrol are dangerous.
"If you have contacted somebody who is now fearful they are going to be held responsible for a criminal act, there is that potential you could get hurt," Sokolik added.
Sokolik says it's important to note that people like Fellows aren’t police-trained interviewers, and there’s a chance his videos wouldn’t hold up a courtroom.
But Woodland Park Police and CSPD fall under the same district attorney’s office.
"I certainly can’t speak to what Woodland Park [police] did or didn’t do, what information they had ahead of time, or any of that," Sokolik said. "So these are very much different things."
Fellows though, thinks his group is doing important work, and that they are doing the work police agencies, like CSPD, should be doing.
"If they could have got it— well they would have never ran into the guy. That’s the problem, there’s not enough of them out there," Fellows added.
"That would be a ridiculous assumption," Sokolik said. "This is not a competition, that somebody has beat us to it. Somebody would have to have probable cause to affect a lawful arrest, and that’s not given to us by somebody saying 'I had a conversation online.'”
These groups should be outlawed, and Fellows and his cohorts should be locked up.
Curtis Hart pulling out of Kelso City Council race
Brennen Kauffman Jul 14, 2021 2
Curtis Hart will appear on the ballot for the Kelso City Council primary, but he is working to suspend his campaign.
Hart said Wednesday that he was no longer planning to move forward due to concerns with years of financial disclosures, for himself and his wife, that are required by the Public Disclosure Commission for political candidates and office holders.
“I’m a public records hound, so I know what can happen once you have those records open to the public, especially if there are people that don’t like you,” Hart said.
His decision to suspend the campaign came after the drop-out deadline for the Aug. 3 primary election. Cowlitz County’s ballots were in the process of being shipped out Wednesday and will list Hart as a candidate for position 1 on the Kelso City Council.
Hart gained notoriety over the last four years for his aggressive vigilante work against sexual offenders in Kelso, often through public records. A record request he made to the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office for details of every low-level sex offender turned into a three-year lawsuit after a group of “John Doe” offenders sued to stop their release.
The “John Does” argued they would suffer severe harassment and harm if Hart went through with plans to publicly release their information. In March, the Washington State Court of Appeals issued a decision in favor of Hart obtaining the full list of records.
Hart said he had initially entered the City Council race because of discussions around limiting the number of sexual offenders who can live in one residence in Kelso. The city staff began drafting an ordinance to establish limits for registered sex offenders in May and Hart said that progress was another reason he was happy to exit the race.
Cowlitz County Auditor Carolyn Fundingsland said if candidates miss the initial withdrawal deadline, there was no process for them to be removed from the ballot any other time before the November general election.
“There is no leeway in state law,” Fundingsland said. “Those candidates, if voted for they will advance to the general election and can be elected to office.”
Hart said Wednesday that he would refuse the position if he did end up winning the race in November.
The other two candidates on the ballot for position 1 in Kelso are incumbent Jeffrey McAllister and Brian Wood. The two candidates with the most votes in the August primary will go on to the general election in November.
Since 2008, this blog has been covering numerous trolls bullying Anti-Registry activists. Some have proven more persistent than others. Some have been personal stalkers, others have tried disrupting the movement as a whole. One thing I haven't really done on this blog is share studies on trolls. This one I just stumbled upon. It is from 2014 but it is no less relevant in 2021.
Let's start by getting our definitions straight: An Internet troll is someone who comes into a discussion and posts comments designed to upset or disrupt the conversation. Often, in fact, it seems like there is no real purpose behind their comments except to upset everyone else involved. Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.
What kind of person would do this? Some Canadian researchers decided to find out.
They conducted two online studies with over 1,200 people, giving personality tests to each subject along with a survey about their Internet commenting behavior. They were looking for evidence that linked trolling with the "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism.
They found that Dark Tetrad scores were highest among people who said trolling was their favorite Internet activity. To get an idea of how much more prevalent these traits were among Internet trolls, one can refer to tables from the paper showing low Dark Tetrad scores for everyone in the study . . . except the trolls. Their scores for all four traits soar on the chart. The relationship between trolling and the Dark Tetrad is so significant that the authors write in their paper:
"... the associations between sadism and GAIT (Global Assessment of Internet Trolling) scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists." [emphasis added]
Trolls truly enjoy making you feel bad. To quote the authors once more (because this is a truly quotable article): "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun. . . and the Internet is their playground!"
The next time you encounter a troll online, remember:
These trolls are some truly difficult people.
It is your suffering that brings them pleasure, so the best thing you can do is ignore them.
The only disappointment in all this is that GoFundMe chose to keep up the fundraiser despite it violating their serms of service, which states it cannot be used to raise money for lawsuits where bullying was involved.
'Predator hunter' moves to dissolve organization and fight charges in Madison County
Teri Maddox Belleville News-Democrat Jun 7, 2021
Kyle Swanson's name has become synonymous with an effort to expose and shame suspected pedophiles, but he's shutting down the organization he founded three years ago.
The decision follows his May 6 indictment by a Madison County grand jury and May 20 arrest on three charges, including two felonies and one misdemeanor, related to a January meeting with a man that resulted in videotaped footage being posted on YouTube.
Swanson said in an interview Sunday that he's taking legal steps to dissolve KTS Predator Hunters, a limited liability company that began as a nonprofit organization in 2018.
"I'm done with it," said Swanson, 30, of Wood River, formerly of Belleville and Alton. "I just have mental exhaustion with all the legal issues (and other pushback)."
Swanson has hired attorney Don Weber, of the Edwardsville-based Craney Law Group, to represent him in the criminal case. Weber is a former state's attorney for Madison and Ford counties, former assistant Illinois attorney general and former Third Judicial Circuit Court judge.
Swanson said he has reached a fundraising goal of $10,000 for his defense, including more than $8,000 from a GoFundMe campaign and $2,000 from sales of T-shirts that read, "Stand with Kyle."
"I dislike (the idea of KTS shutting down)," said fellow leader T.J. Pfleger, 37, an IT specialist who lives in Jersey County. "But I understand why he's doing it, knowing what he's been through and what it takes to do something like this."
Swanson, a U.S. Army combat veteran, said last month that legal problems have worsened his post-traumatic stress disorder.
Support and controversy
KTS leaders posted photos, videos and other information on Facebook to expose and shame people they suspected of being pedophiles. They sometimes posed as underage girls online and lured men to various locations, presumably to have sex; videotaped the confrontations and broadcast them on YouTube.
KTS leaders say their undercover operations have led to arrests, but they've also been criticized by law enforcement for vigilantism that can interfere with investigations and prosecutions.
KTS: Stop Sexual Assault, one of the organization's Facebook groups, has more than 51,000 followers.
Despite what critics claim, Swanson said, he has made very little money off KTS activities. He works as an auto mechanic.
"We were trying to do a good thing, trying to spread awareness throughout the community," he said. "It kinda sucks that we have to end it this way. It is what it is. ... But it was nice to see the community support and to let people know what's going on out there."
Pfleger said he joined Swanson's effort because he's a father of four and because several years ago a stranger tried to pick up his small son from the front yard.
Pfleger said he and Swanson were more aggressive during meetings with suspected pedophiles in the beginning, but they learned that a calmer approach could be more effective in getting men to open up about their own child abuse and other issues.
"I hate to see (KTS) come to an end," Pfleger said. "I just feel like it was making a difference. ... Even if it keeps one person away from the kids, then that's a success in my mind."
Grand jury indictment
The grand jury reviewed evidence on May 6 from an Illinois State Police investigation before indicting Swanson on one count of unlawful restraint and one count of obstruction of justice/destroying evidence, both Class 4 felonies; and one count of assault, a Class C misdemeanor.
The charges revolve around a meeting between Swanson and another man on Jan. 12 at an unnamed location in Madison County.
"(Swanson) knowingly and without legal authority detained (the man), in that the said defendant enticed (the man) into his vehicle under a false pretense and refused to let (the man) exit the vehicle when requested," according to the indictment for Count 1.
"(Swanson) knowingly caused physical evidence to be destroyed, altered, concealed, in that said defendant induced (the man and a woman) to erase digital evidence of a crime contained on a phone," according to the indictment for Count 2.
"(Swanson) engaged in conduct that places another in reasonable apprehension of receiving a battery, in that he threatened to hit (the man)," according to the indictment for Count 3.
Last month, Swanson called the charges "B.S." and a "scare tactic." He said the man, who the BND isn't naming because he hasn't been charged with a crime, entered his car voluntarily.
Swanson turned himself into authorities on May 20. He was released after posting the required 10% of his $40,000 bond.
'Peaceful' protest
A preliminary hearing on the Swanson case is scheduled for Friday with Associate Judge Ronald Slemer presiding. Supporters are advertising on Facebook a "peaceful" protest at 9 a.m. outside the Madison County Criminal Justice Center in Edwardsville.
Class 4 felonies can carry penalties of one to three years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines. Class C misdemeanors can carry penalties of up to 30 days in jail and up to $1,500 in fines.
State's Attorney Tom Haine released the following statement about the Swanson case on May 24:
"The Grand Jury's decision here reflects the fundamental idea that when members of a community decide to take justice into their own hands, even for laudable purposes, they can place themselves and others in danger and damage potential cases.
"We have tremendous law enforcement agencies in Madison County, and the public needs to let them do their job. Having a citizenry that is observant of suspicious behavior and criminal activity is important, but citizens must utilize the existing law enforcement channels to ensure that true justice is pursued, where criminals are caught and exposed but with sufficient evidence that can hold up in a court of law and sustain a conviction, all the while respecting each individual's right to presumed innocence under our Constitutional system.
"When members of a community decide to take justice into their own hands, they can place themselves and others in danger, damage potential cases, and violate citizen's fundamental rights."
Campaign for sheriff
In November, Swanson announced his plan to run for Madison County sheriff in 2022. His Facebook campaign page includes a badge-shaped logo with an image of him wearing a cowboy hat and his trademark bushy beard.
But on Sunday, Swanson said he plans to move to Florida, where many of his family members live, after the criminal case is over, if he's not jailed.
Friday won't be his first courtroom experience.
A Red Bud man filed a civil lawsuit against Swanson and KTS in September 2020 in Randolph County Circuit Court. Adrian Collins maintained that the organization had wrongly defamed him on Facebook by accusing him of "grooming" a 14-year-old girl for sex in private messages.
Collins filed a motion for voluntary dismissal in December, and a judge granted it on March 22. Swanson declared victory in a Facebook Live chat with followers while leaving the Chester courthouse.
Last fall, Collinsville School District Unit 10 officials expressed concern in a letter to parents that KTS had engaged in one of its sting-like operations in the parking lot of Webster Elementary School.
The target was a Missouri man who allegedly thought he was meeting a 13-year-old girl. Instead, he faced two KTS members, who interrogated and reprimanded him for about 10 minutes as a video camera recorded the scene.
The organization argued that it occurred after school hours, put no child in danger and succeeded in showing the brazenness of some pedophiles.
Way back in September 2008 (and again in the spring of 2009), Brett Franklin from Sedalia MO, a member of the old Perverted-Justice/ Absolute Zero United troll alliance, began calling anti-registry activists to threaten them. His MO was pretty brazen-- using his REAL home phone number, an easily traceable landline, he called a number of anti-registry activists. He would initially pretend to be a government agent or a member of various gangs and proceed to threaten them and call them a barrage of the usual silly names the trolls call us. I had a little fun angering him over the phone to the point he dropped his government agent act and claimed to be in a gang and was locked up in Leavenworth. As part of the act, he apparntly made "gangster" videos on Youtube. A few anti-registry activists even derided him as a "pig fucker."
It apparently lost interest or moved on to other folks to bully. I had kind of forgotten about him until I was going over old records and saw I still have the conversation I recorded from the 47 times he tried calling my over a two day span. So I looked him up to see if he's involved with anyt current vigilante groups, and it turns out he was hit by a "commercial motor vehicle" (bus? truck?) in March 2020, so that at least closes the entry on Brett Franklin.
Life is short, folks. Do something else besides troll anti-registry activists with the short life you have, because you could be walking down the street one day and bam!
On Monday morning at 7:19 a.m. (on 3/24/20), Sedalia Police, Sedalia Fire and PCAD responded to Main and Ohio on a pedestrian struck while crossing Ohio eastbound on Main by a commercial motor vehicle that was making a right turn from westbound Main onto northbound Ohio.
The pedestrian, who was not named in the report, had severe head trauma and died at the scene as a result of his injuries.
The circumstances surrounding the accident are still under investigation, according to Cpl. Silvey. The pedestrian's next of kin were notified by police.
The pedestrian was later identified by Sedalia Police Commander Joshua Howell as 44-year-old Brett E. Franklin of Sedalia.
A vigilante ‘predator hunter’ clashed with police and prosecutors. Now, he’s the one facing felony charges.
By: Katie Shepherd
May 28, 2021 at 9:02 a.m. UTC
For more than two years, Kyle Swanson and his vigilante group have been tricking men in St. Louis to meet in parking lots by posing as children on social media and then live-streaming the confrontations for tens of thousands of followers.
Swanson, a bearded and tattooed 30-year-old from Wood River, Ill., claims that he has helped police jail hundreds of would-be pedophiles since launching KTS Predator Hunters in 2019.
But now he is the one facing criminal charges after a Jan. 12 sting went awry.
A grand jury this month indicted Swanson for unlawful restraint and obstructing justice, both felonies, as well as misdemeanor assault, after he allegedly lured a man into his car in Madison County, Ill., refused to let him leave, and threatened to hit him.
“The Grand Jury’s decision here reflects the fundamental idea that when members of a community decide to take justice into their own hands, even for laudable purposes, they can place themselves and others in danger and damage potential cases,” Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine said in a statement shared with The Washington Post.
Swanson has denied wrongdoing on his social media accounts and denounced law enforcement’s decision to charge him.
“They are protecting the pedophiles over me,” he said in a TikTok video this week. “I’ve done nothing but try to do good. I try to protect kids, and now they’re screwing me over.”
Madison County law enforcement officials have been feuding with Swanson’s group since its inception, the Telegraph reported last year.
The former Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons had previously warned Swanson that his sting operations could easily devolve into violence and jeopardize criminal cases because his tactics made it “virtually impossible for us to charge somebody.” He urged the group to stop setting up meetings with suspected pedophiles. The Madison County sheriff similarly asked Swanson and his partners to call police with tips instead of confronting people without any law enforcement involvement.
Last year, one of the men that KTS Predator Hunters targeted sued the group for defamation and claimed that the group’s posts about him had led his family to be ceaselessly harassed by Swanson’s followers.
“Defendants maliciously and intentionally caused the publication of the false statements to a Facebook page with thousands of followers for the purpose of harming the Plaintiff’s good reputation,” the lawsuit alleged, the Belleville News-Democrat reported. That case was dismissed in March, according to court records.
In September a local school district blasted Swanson for convincing a “potentially dangerous adult” to meet him in the parking lot of an elementary school, without warning police or school officials.
Although Swanson claims that his group’s efforts to name and shame pedophiles have led to hundreds of arrests, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2019 that many of those cases ultimately fell apart because prosecutors lacked the evidence needed to secure convictions.
Swanson credits NBC’s “Dateline: To Catch A Predator” with inspiring his group. The show, hosted by Chris Hansen, became a household name when it aired from 2004 to 2007, but was often criticized for blurring the line between news and entertainment. Hansen worked with volunteers who posed as children online and enticed men to meet them in sting houses, where police would swoop in to make an arrest as a camera crew recorded the encounter.
The show ultimately ended its run after a 2007 confrontation led a man to shoot and kill himself as police and a film crew forced their way into his home. The family sued NBC, claiming that the studio “steamrolled” police and pressured officers to make an arrest without taking proper precautions. A U.S. district judge said the evidence in the case might convince a jury that the network had “crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement.” NBC eventually settled the suit in 2008 with an undisclosed payment.
Similar concerns that Swanson’s live-streamed confrontations could lead to violence have prompted local law enforcement to condemn KTS Predator Hunters.
On Jan. 12, Swanson convinced a man to meet him in a parking lot in Madison County, Ill., and “enticed” him to enter his car under a “false pretense,” according to the grand jury indictment. Prosecutors did not describe the incident in detail, but said that it was related to Swanson’s KTS Predator Hunters activities.
As Swanson confronted the man, he asked to leave but Swanson refused to let him exit the vehicle, according to the indictment. At some point during the encounter, Swanson allegedly threatened to hit the man.
Prosecutors allege that because of Swanson’s ambush, the man deleted evidence of a crime from his phone, which interfered with a possible criminal investigation.
“When members of a community decide to take justice into their own hands, they can place themselves and others in danger, damage potential cases, and violate citizen’s fundamental rights,” Haine said this week when he announced the criminal charges against Swanson.
The St. Louis-area group charges fees for fans to subscribe to bonus content on its website. KTS Predator Hunters has posted dozens of videos for tens of thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
After Swanson’s arrest this week, the group also began promoting a fundraiser on GoFundMe to pay for his legal fees.
Swanson declared in December that he plans to run for Madison County Sheriff in 2022, and began selling campaign stickers online. On his campaign Facebook page, KTS Predator Hunters said the group had temporarily shut down while Swanson deals with the “ridiculous charges” against him.
After spending the past two years publicly shaming others in videos and photos online, Swanson said the negative publicity from his own arrest had been a strain.
“Past few days have been hell for me,” Swanson said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “Nothing like getting up, opening your phone and seeing your mug shot everywhere. I know it’s not just me, but I feel like my picture is every third post on my timeline.”
Here are a few of my favorite comments in the Washington Post comment area to this article:
"The beard alone is a prosecutable offense."
"Why doesn't he just become a police officer if he wants to protect kids? It doesn't take much to become a police officer. Trying to play super hero!"
--It probably takes more than what he has to offer.
--He would have to shave.
--It's like all those fat-bellied idiots who strut around wagging guns and calling themselves "militias" or "state guards" or whatever silly terminology they want to use. Why don't they join the military and be real soldiers? Because it's TOO MUCH WORK!! They couldn't sit around drinking beer every afternoon and boasting about how tough they are -- they'd have to actually DO things! Work out! Take showers! Take orders! Jump out of airplanes -- go on 20-mile hikes in full battle rattle -- get shot at -- drive trucks up mountain roads with no guardrails and no 7-Elevens with sausage-biscuits --This yahoo likes boasting. He loves the attention. Being a cop is too much hard work.
"So the guy who has been posting and live streaming other's supposed criminal activity online for profit is now complaining his life is he!! because his mug shot is being posted online after his arrest for abduction. Sounds about right."
"What happened to making a citizen's arrest?"
--You need an IQ over 30. This bozo failed by about 20 points. But listen to him whine - he's a master at that.
-- -- that's cute that you think he even registers an IQ as a positive number
"C'mon, ask the question we all want answered: Whom did he vote for?"
-- The bad beard is a clue.
"Can't I act like a clueless imbecile without people criticizing me?"
"So many of the world's problems can be directly traced to the internet providing a forum for erstwhile basement dwellers. This case exists simply because this guy has a public forum to showcase his douchey superhero exploits. I guarantee you he would not be out saving the world without an audience to monetize him and stroke his ego."
"Let me guess. This guy is QAnon and MAGA, although there’s no real difference between the two."
"Sounds like he monetized his wanna be cop role play."
"I'm guessing Kyle Swanson is trying to deflect a long history of engaging in pedophilia."
Kyle Swanson speaks in the third person. He thinks he's The rock, apparently.
Rory Banks was a follower of "QAnon", the idiotic conspiracy theory that the world is run by a satanic, cannibalistic pedophile cult. It was only a matter of time for one of these nutjobs committed murder.
Murder In Wheatland: Wife Of Suspected Killer Says Husband Was Conspiracy Theorist
By Marissa PerlmanMay 13, 2021 at 6:06 pm
WHEATLAND (CBS13) – Julie Banks’ husband, Rory Banks, is accused of breaking into a man’s house and killing him.
She says she is shocked her husband is accused of this crime, but calls him a good man. (Good men don't commit premeditated murder, Julie.)
Julie says her husband had been growing increasingly paranoid over the past several months and believes he was in the middle of a mental episode.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said.
She was emotional speaking about her husband. He’s accused of breaking into the home of Ralph Mendez, 55, in the dark of night before shooting and killing him.
The Banks live about a mile away from Mendez’s home, but Wheatland police say the two didn’t know each other.
CBS13 asked Banks why her husband may have targeted Mendez.
“I think he despised people who hurt children,” she said.
CBS13 is learning Mendez is registered as a sex offender... Julie Banks says it’s possible her husband could have found Mendez on the Megan’s Law website.
She remembered a recent conversation they had about local sex offenders.
“There’s a lot in Wheatland, that’s what he said to me,” said Julie Banks.
Police discovered pipe bombs while serving a search warrant at the Banks’ home on McCurry Street, and forcing the neighborhood to evacuate.
Julie says in recent months, her husband was growing active in Q’Anon, a fringe conspiracy theory group active on social media.
His car features a “Q” sticker outside their home.
Julie is not sure when she’ll be able to speak to her husband next to get the full story.
“I wish I could hug him and give him a kiss. I’m not trying to discount what has happened, at all,” said Julie Banks.
CBS13 spoke with the Mendez family, they didn’t want to speak on camera but say Ralph Mendez was putting his life back together at the time of his death.
A few years back, when Clitoris... er, "Curtis" J Hart of the "Punisher Squad" decided to harass me, he left a nasty little threat on the OnceFallen.com FB page:
Apparently, he won the appeal and is free to destroy the lives of Registrants in his county. What were the judges smoking?
Washington state law strictly limits public disclosure of all level 1 registered sex offender information. Information concerning this level of registration shall be shared with other law enforcement agencies, and upon request, relevant, necessary and accurate information may be disclosed to any victim or witness to the offense and to any community member who lives near the residence where the offender resides, expects to reside, or is regularly found. Level 1 sex offenders may not be subject to general public notification. Level 1 sex offenders meet most, if not all, the following criteria and are considered a low risk to the community: Offense is non-violent, Offense committed in a family setting, Offender has completed a treatment program, Overall the offender is a low risk to the general public.
And yet, the judges of Washington State is allowing Clitoris J Hart to bypass this protection. He's posted the data of all level 1 registrants of his county at:
hXXps://curtishart70.wixsite.com/level1s*xoffenders (I obviously slightly altered the link so as not to hotlink my blog to his harassment.
What a shock, Clitoris J Hart and the Punisher Squad are already starting harassment campaigns.
I look forward to seeing Clitoris J Hart get sued into oblivion. This is simple harassment, pure and simple.
This happens more often than people realise, but not every instance makes the paper. Legislators should pass legislation outlawing these scumbag groups, and Facebook and Google (which owns YouTube) should also remove these offensive groups from their platforms. And before you try coming here defending these dumb fucks, their page is full of the same vitriol as any other vigilante page, and the only reason they changed their policies (as noted in this news story) is because they are in danger of being sued. I'm sure that policy won't be strickly enforced once the fear of lawsuits die down. They are also using QAnon hashtags:
Vigilante Justice: Online groups target child predators, Indiana prosecutors concerned about 'risky behavior'
Author: Dustin Grove
Published: 11:00 PM EDT April 27, 2021
Updated: 1:00 AM EDT April 28, 2021
INDIANAPOLIS — A growing number of county prosecutors say they’re concerned about civilian groups taking the law into their own hands in an effort to expose alleged child predators.
“It’s very dangerous,” said Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings. “They have engaged in very risky behavior here several times. Someone is likely to be hurt if they continue.”
Similar statements have come out in recent weeks from prosecutors in Elkhart, Howard and Orange counties....
Law enforcement officials call them vigilantes. But Austin Spain said he’s just trying to protect children in his community from a problem he believes the justice system can’t keep up with....
Prosecutors warn confrontations could backfire
Critics argue this kind of thing isn’t without major risks.
“When citizens take matters into their own hands, it can usually be harmful to a successful prosecution, leading to someone who may well have been guilty walking free,” said Howard County Prosecutor Mark McCann. “Vigilantes also open themselves up to potential lawsuits for libel and slander should the person they are going after decide to bring a lawsuit.”
Just ask Joey Dewitt.
"I wasn’t even the right guy," he said.
A predator catchers group was trying to find a man they’d been chatting with online who went by “Joey" from either Anderson or Muncie.
“So as they’re talking with this guy and calling him out saying what all he did, everybody watching that live feed was searching for Joey from Muncie or Joey from Anderson to find him on Facebook and I’m the one they found,” said Dewitt.
Within minutes, his Facebook page blew up with more than 300 vulgar accusations.
“There were people calling my HR department saying they had a child molester there,” Dewitt recalled.
They also messaged Dewitt’s friends of Facebook and even his wife.
The online mob eventually realized they had the wrong man.
Predator Catchers Indianapolis administrators scolded their followers and banned some from their page.
But Joey Dewitt said the damage was already done.
“I didn’t know if any of these people knew where I lived. They knew where I worked cause they blasted my work name on that live feed so even now I still don’t know if everybody got the memo that I’m not that guy” he said. “Are they meaning to do good? I think they are but there's just so many things that could go wrong with how and what they're doing.”
Good intentions don't always help in court
"I mean, we're talking safety, we're talking people's livelihoods," said Indiana State Police Capt. Ron Galaviz.
"While these groups may have the best intentions in mind... Law enforcement officials are the only ones qualified to conduct these kinds of investigations,” said Elkhart County Prosecutor Vickey Becker. “Having gone through extensive training, these officials know the right techniques in collecting and preserving the evidence that is necessary to prosecute these kinds of cases and ensuring that an investigation is done objectively, and professionally, respecting the constitutional rights of suspects."
Cummings said he’s told local groups his office will not file charges in any of the cases. Instead, he’s encouraging them to bring information to law enforcement officials and not to confront the alleged would-be offenders.
After the incident with Dewitt, Predator Catchers Indianapolis posted rules for people to follow on their page. Among them, followers may not contact alleged offenders or anyone related to them. Followers must also refrain from posting full names of anyone online.
Asked whether he think he’s playing with fire, Spain said he doesn’t disagree.
“Eventually I may get hurt. (But) if I don't do it, somebody's for sure gonna get hurt right now,” he said.
And law enforcement officials say that's the problem.
Former School Paraprofessional Takes Plea Bargain for Shooting and Killing Sex Offender
Alberto Luperon 2 days ago
Nebraska man and former school paraprofessional James Fairbanks, 44, pleaded no contest on Thursday to second-degree murder for shooting convicted sex offender Mattieo Condoluci, 64, in a 2020 confrontation, according to Omaha World-Herald.
There’s no dispute Fairbanks did it. He repeatedly admitted to the act, even sending a letter to media outlets before his arrest. As far as the prosecution was concerned, the dispute was over whether Fairbanks did the right thing, and whether the defense was disingenuous.
“There are a lot of criminals in the world,” said chief deputy Douglas County attorney Brenda Beadle. “You don’t get to confront them and then try to claim self-defense. Especially when you do all this research on someone a week before you murder them.”
Condoluci was convicted of child molestation in a 1994 Florida case, and a 2007 case out of Sarpy County, Nebraska. Prosecutors in the latter incident considered him a “dangerous sex offender” even after his 2009 release from prison. For a time, Condoluci went onto become a street minister to the homeless in Omaha, serving meals and giving haircuts.
But Fairbanks, who was the father of sons aged 12 and 17, said he was apartment hunting and learned of Condoluci’s past when researching the neighborhood he planned on moving into. He claimed to have witnessed him pretending to wash a truck in order to leer at a group of nearby children.
The defense account is that an armed Fairbanks went to Condoluci’s home, told him he was moving nearby, and pointed at the rifle at him — not to murder Condoluci, but to warn him against harming any other kids.
Condoluci backed up, but the defendant mistook an object for a purse, and thought a woman might have been at the scene. In that moment, the resident allegedly charged Fairbanks, who opened fire multiple times.
Prosecutors basically called this story a bunch of B.S: the defendant was not apartment hunting, he was p*** hunting. Before the incident, Fairbanks looked up whether the state’s death row had a commissary, what punishments men got for killing sex offenders in the past, whether a local gunshot alert system could hear such sounds from inside a home, how self-defense was defined as opposed to second-degree murder, and even the way to another sex offender’s home.
......
A prison term is inescapable, however. Under the terms of the plea bargain, Fairbanks faces 21 years to life at the sentencing set for July 14. The victim’s son Joe Condoluci acknowledged his father’s criminal history and was distraught over his sister’s allegations, but he said that Fairbanks was looking for evil reasons behind his father’s routine behavior, such as cleaning his truck.
“The guy didn’t know my dad,” he told KETV in 2020. “He didn’t know anything about him all. He knew was stuff that he’s seen online.”
The defendant told the World-Herald after court that he regretted what he put his family through.
On Wednesday, April 6th, 2021, the FBI arrested Charles Rodrick, the head of the Offendex and related sites like Offendex-data, Sexoffenderarchives, and Courtkey, has been arrested on multiple crimes, including Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices, Illegally Conducting an Enterprise, Computer Tampering (Rodrick only), and teo Counts of Aggravated Harassment.
The same grand jury also indicted his colleague Brent Oesterblad and Sarah Shea, former wife of Mr. Oesterblad for a variety of felonies including computer tampering, fraudulent schemes and artifices as well as illegally conducting an enterprise.
.7:40pm PST, April 6th, 2021, Records indicate he has posted the $30k bond and is free from physical custody. However, he is still fitted with the GPS tracking bracelet.
The personal blog of the vigilante who has attacked many Anti-Registry activists, and particularly Derek Logue of OnceFallen.com, Vicki Henry from Women Against Registry, and Gail Colletta from Florida Action Committee, which included a stalker wall of Derek Logue and members of his family, are no longer online (for now).
This troll, who I've been calling "stalker wall guy" for his unhealthy obsession with stealing pictures of me and my estranged family as well as the families of other Anti-Registry activists, started a blog in 2019 called "Sex Offender News" (a parody of a regular poster at Florida Action Committee named Sex Offender TRUTH"). In between posts mocking the plight of Registered Persons, he'd post distorted mugshots of random arrests and would make comments suggesting everyone on the registry should be tortured/murdered.
Stalker Wall Guy's behavior has been erratic over these past two years. The spam folder for this blog is filled with his droppings. He kept up the parody blog for two years, then out of the blue, Stalker Wall Guy began removing the majority of posts from his blog. Yesterday, all that remained were a handful of crap posts mocking anti-registry activists. But today (after the loser left his daily stupid post I flag as spam) I visited the blog and saw it was removed.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. I can think of a few reasons he took it down-- he published one too many falsehoods, he finally realized a stalker wall is actually a bad thing, he realized people in power are taking notice of the connection between Stalker Wall Guy and the Book Crime Family are connected, the fact no one actually read his tripe (except me for the purpose of poking fun at him/her/it and finding connections between Staker Wall Guy and the Books), my three victories over the "mighty" Lauren Book, or the stalker finally realized it's given me two years worth of evidence which can be used against him.
He'll probably be back with some other hairbrained scheme but for now, I like seeing this dumbass lose his blog.
Addendum: Stalker Wall Guy apparently got locked out of his blog so he created yet another blog with the same boring routine as before. Now he calls it "s*x offenderS truth." I guess he is obsessed with that name as well.
I can't find one of agent Daniel Alfin, but here's a pic of Agent Laura Schwartzenberger
Over the years, the FBI and local law enforcement have engaged in entrapment operations, and in the case of the FBI, they were using actual CP to try to entice people into their entrapment operations. Then these agencies conduct massive "sweeps" where they not only bust these folks, they also conduct registry compliance sweeps and prostitution sweeps and bundle them all together in these dubious "human trafficking busts." Anything to inflate the numbers.
You don't see them do this with drug traffickers and gangs like MS-13 because they'll actually fight back. Most people accused of sex crimes aren't violent criminals and these agencies know this, so it is good PR for them. It is low hanging fruit that makes people think they're doing something special when they are not.
Maybe this incident will make the FBI and other agencies scale back these ridiculous operations. I wonder how many entrapment operations these two agents conducted. BTW, I noticed the news media doesn't want to bring up the fact the FBI ran a Dark Web CP site themselves (using actual CP) to engage in their honeypot operations.
Three other agents were injured in a shooting that occurred as agents were executing a search warrant in Sunrise, west of Fort Lauderdale. The man being investigated was found dead.
By Patricia Mazzei, Adam Goldman, Johnny Diaz and Christina Morales
Feb. 2, 2021
MIAMI — The sun had not come up yet on Tuesday when a group of F.B.I. agents assigned to investigate criminals who prey on children online approached the Water Terrace apartments in Sunrise, Fla., to execute a search warrant, a routine part of the job that is always fraught with risk.
What exactly happened in the ensuing minutes is unknown, but a gun battle broke out, rousting neighbors out of bed in the quiet residential community. Law enforcement officials called emergency dispatchers. Multiple shots fired, they reported. Send air rescue.
Two F.B.I. agents died and three more were injured in one of the deadliest shootings in the bureau’s history. No agent had been shot and killed on duty since 2008. A similarly bloody shootout took place in a Miami suburb 35 years ago, killing two F.B.I. agents and injuring five others.
The man being investigated in the case, which the authorities said involved violent crimes against children, had barricaded himself inside the complex and was found dead. A law enforcement official said it appeared that the man had killed himself before agents were able to arrest him. His identity was not released until his family could be notified of his death.
Video footage from local police stations showed a grisly scene at the open-air apartment complex. A SWAT truck had rammed into staircase railings that lay on the ground in tatters. There were blood stains on the floor outside the apartments. The police swarmed to the complex, shutting down the roads and keeping people out for most of the day.
Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, identified the two agents who were killed as Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger.
“Every day, F.B.I. special agents put themselves in harm’s way to keep the American people safe,” Mr. Wray said in a statement. “Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger exemplified heroism today in defense of their country. The F.B.I. will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery.”
Ms. Schwartzenberger, 43, was a mother of two from Colorado and had been with the F.B.I. since 2005. She was part of the violent crimes against children squad in the bureau’s Miami field office, court records show. She was assigned to the Innocent Images National Initiative, a part of the F.B.I.’s cybercrimes program established to combat the proliferation of images of child sexual abuse online.
Mr. Alfin, 36, was a father of one from New York and had been a special agent since 2009. He was assigned to the Miami Child Exploitation task force. He discussed his role in an online F.B.I. article about the 2015 arrest of a Naples, Fla., man who ran what the bureau described as the world’s largest child pornography website. The site, called Playpen, had more than 150,000 users around the world.
“They put their lives on the line and that’s a hell of a price to pay,” President Biden said of the agents in remarks from the Oval Office. “My heart aches for the families.”
Dawn Garrick, a resident of the apartment complex where the shootings occurred, said she was awakened from her sleep shortly after 6 a.m. by blaring police sirens and cruiser lights gleaming into her ground-floor bedroom window. From her room, Ms. Garrick, 53, watched as concerned neighbors stepped out to see what was going on, only to be directed back inside by the police. About an hour later, she said, she saw paramedics loading someone on a stretcher into an ambulance.
The community is typically safe and quiet, she said.
“There are a lot of working professionals,” she said. “Everybody is friendly.”
Two of the wounded agents, each of them shot multiple times, according to the F.B.I., were transported to a hospital. The third did not require hospitalization.
The F.B.I. squads that investigate crimes against children are considered some of the most difficult assignments because of the disturbing and graphic nature of the cases they handle. Agents typically review horrendous depictions of children being sexually exploited, images that are then shared with others online.
Investigations into child sexual abuse often start with a tip from online social media companies like Facebook, which reported finding nearly 60 million images and videos in 2019 alone. About half of the content was not necessarily illegal, according to the company, and was reported to help law enforcement with investigations.
Yet companies can usually only detect a small percentage of what is distributed, since they rely on automated systems that can only flag material that has been previously flagged by users. From a tip of just one or two images or videos, investigators frequently find troves of thousands, or more, on a suspect’s hard drive.
The sharing of this imagery can also point to real-world abuse. It is not uncommon to find offenders who share child sexual abuse imagery who have also abused children in real life.
Mr. Alfin was involved in an investigation into a dark web forum beginning in 2014 where members would upload and trade graphic images of child sexual abuse. The investigation resulted in the arrest of at least 350 people in the United States and hundreds more around the world. It is credited with rescuing over 300 children, according to a news release from the F.B.I.
For the past decade, criminals have increasingly been using advanced technologies like the dark web — where users’ internet protocol addresses are obscured — to stay ahead of the police. In one case, an Ohio man helped run a dark website with nearly 30,000 members from 2012 to 2014. The site, now shuttered, required users to share images of abuse to maintain good standing, according to court documents.
The online forum had a private section that was only available to members who shared imagery of children they had abused themselves.
Several police investigations in recent years have broken up other enormous dark web forums, including one known as Child’s Play that was reported to have had over a million user accounts.
No details have emerged on the investigation in Florida that led to Tuesday’s shooting. Hours after the gunfire, there was still a heavy police presence around the apartment complex.
George L. Piro, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Miami field office, said agents “meticulously plan” and execute search warrants almost daily.
“The vast majority of these warrants occur without incident,” he said. “The operations this morning in Sunrise ended tragically, with the subject opening fire on the members of the search team.”
Throughout the day, the police maintained a perimeter about half a mile north, restricting access to the complex and surrounding areas. Officers cordoned off a large swath of Nob Hill Road and set up a staging site in a nearby rehabilitation hospital.
The agents killed on Tuesday were the first who had been fatally shot in the line of duty since November 2008, when Special Agent Samuel S. Hicks, 33, was killed while serving a search warrant, according to the F.B.I.
Mr. Hicks was part of a team of agents executing an arrest warrant at a house near Pittsburgh that was connected to a drug trafficking ring, the bureau said.
The shooting on Tuesday was one of the worst in the history of the F.B.I.
In 1986, two agents were killed in Miami and five others wounded during the pursuit of two violent bank robbers who were also killed in the exchange. The gun battle at the Suniland Shopping Plaza in what is now the village of Pinecrest was the costliest in F.B.I. history.
In November 1994, two agents were killed, a third agent was wounded and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg when a man came into the cold case squad room of Police Headquarters in Washington and opened fire with an assault rifle, according to the F.B.I.
A police detective was also killed during the shooting. The gunman, a suspect in a triple killing a month earlier, had left notes saying he planned to kill members of the local police homicide unit, the F.B.I. said.
On Tuesday, police officers stood in a somber line saluting as a gurney carrying one of the bodies draped in an American flag was placed into a fire rescue truck at the Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. A procession of dark law enforcement S.U.V.s and motorcycles with sirens and lights then escorted the ambulance to the county medical examiner’s office.
My personal stalker and the Shoalanda Spreaks vigilante group are teaming up to write a blatantly false "bio" of me by "speaking to a few locals" in the Shoals area.
It is funny yet sad how much this "Shoalanda Speaks" character has been over the years just to attack me. She worked in the past with recidivist sex offender Clay "T-Sand" Keys, so it is obvious she doesn't mind working with a person with multiple convictions. In recent years, she has worked with a troll connected to Ron and Lauren Book, a person who has used many personas but I like to call "Stalker Wall Guy" , since one of his favorite hobbies includes stealing my pictures and assorted friends and family members and making silly collages on his blog. (Stalker Wall Guy has been shown in the past to be connected to the Ron and Lauren Book Crime Family.)
There is no one named Nick Ireland in Huntsville, AL, much less any well-known criminologist or crime writer. It is just another made up persona by the Shoalanda group once used on a Shoalanda sister blog called "Shoals Crime." (And I mean literally once. Otherwise, this person does not exist anywhere online.)
I guess Shoalanda thinks that if she writes under a pen name, this can't be traced back to her. But considering her Shoals Crime blog is already promoting the cover, which looks just like her other shitty book offerings,
I actually look forward to reading this just to see far they're willing to take this farce.
Already, they've made two false claims -- the first claiming I was abandoned as an infant, and the second is climing a conviction for child rape. Considering the nature of Stalker Wall Guy's writing abilities, there will be plenty of blatant errors in grammar as well as content. They're already using one stolen picture so at the least, I plan on blocking it on DMCA grounds.
I actually look forward to see how far this farce will go. How far are these two dumbfucks willing to go to attack me? But I expect to be paid for using my name and likeness for it.
Christopher Rydgig, an Edward Jones Financial Advisor in Maryville, IL, gave an award to Kyle Swanson of KTS Predator Hunters. Feel free to share your disgust at:
Mr. Rydgig should vet their award recipients a lot better, because:
1. KTS Predator Hunters is currently being sued by autistic man they tried setting up: As mentioned in yesterday's article, KTS Predator Hunters has been sued, and the group is claiming the lawsuit may cause them to cease operations. (Good.) KTS is trying to raise $7500 for attorney fees but thankfully has only raised $900 on GoFundMe so far. I've reported that campaign so hopefully it will be removed soon.
i'm amazed they weren't taken to task when members of their vigilante page made nasty remarks on the Madison County IL Sheriff's Office Facebook page. As The Telegraph notes,
"The Sheriff’s Department made several postings in response to the incident on its Facebook page, but eventually took them down because of the confrontational nature of the group’s responses, according to Vucich."
2. KTS Predator Hunters has been in a dispute with local law enforcement agencies:The Telegraph reported in August 2020 that "KTS Predator Hunters LLC, has been in a feud with the sheriff’s department since an incident in Alton late last month. Madison County Chief Deputy Sheriff Major Jeff Connor, who also is the commander of the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, said he believes the group has good intentions, but are going about it improperly, making it difficult for law enforcement to prosecute. That was echoed by Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons, who said he had met with representatives of the group about 18 months ago, when he told them how they needed to work with local law enforcement... Connor also said that, according to video recorded at the scene, they threatened the man and “took weed” from the man. “We don’t know what they did with it,” said Connor in reference to the alleged marijuana. “We know they didn’t turn it over to the police.” Later in the monthly county judiciary meeting, Gibbons said he had talked to representatives of the KTS group and “explained to them how the methods they were using made it virtually impossible for us to charge somebody.” Gibbons said that when someone is identified as abusing or endangering children “that is when you call 911. “Once you go and arrange a meeting with these people, the investigation is beyond where we will be able to obtain additional evidence,” he said.
3. KTS had been kicked off social media at least once already: Considering how hard it is to get these groups kicked off Facebook, they must have done something quite horrific to have had their previous account deleted.
They are currently at risk for deletion yet again:
It may be partially because KTS also posted siome QAnon propaganda and is friends with the doucherag David Rowe from No Peace For Predators, another QAnon conspiracy crackpot:
4. Most of KTS's "cases" do not lead to arrests or convictions: Even before counties in Missouri outright banned using vigilante group data for arrests, most of KTS Predatror Hunter's "exposes" went absolutely nowhere; even when an arrest was made, cases were later dropped. Similar cases in Illinois, where KTS now operates, were also dropped due to KTS incompetence.
5. KTS Predator Hunters doesn't mind engaging in risky behavior: KTS set up one of their entrapment operations in the parking lot of a grade school, which alarmed local officials. "Collinsville Unit School District 10 officials were disturbed to learn that one of these sting-like operations took place Monday night in the parking lot of Webster Elementary School. The target was a Missouri man who apparently thought he was meeting a 13-year-old girl. Instead, he faced two members of the metro-east group KTS Predator Hunters. They interrogated and reprimanded him for about 10 minutes as video cameras recorded the scene. 'This group had no involvement, agreement or communication with the school district or local law enforcement before, during or after this occurred,' Superintendent Brad Skertich said Thursday. 'They were completely on their own.'"
OK, for those wondering why data from a vigilante group is generally not used in a real criminal case, look up the term "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree." In the case leading to the dispute with the Madison Co IL Sheriff's Dept, The Telegraph noted,
"The alleged incident took place Wednesday in the parking lot of a Walgreens on State Street in Alton, but both county and city law enforcement officials said they received either no or haphazard information prior to the actual incident, and have not been contacted since."
We don't know all of what was said during this conversation. How do we even know proper protocol was followed and the alleged predator is actually intending to meet an underage person? When vigilante groups dick with providing potential evidence, it is unusable.
I'm sure to get plenty of nasty messages from this group for posting this, so I'll be sure to submit this to the attorney for the man suing these losers as well as posting them here.
