An Oklahoma father used a backyard sting to catch a 33-year-old man who allegedly sought sex with his 15-year-old daughter.
It’s not a method that police recommend, but a spokesperson for the local department didn’t blame him for doing it.
Coverage of ‘Creep Catchers’ on Globalnews.ca:
An unidentified father from Del City, Okla. said his “heart was racing” when he saw that his teen daughter was exchanging messages with a man in his 30s, News 9 reported Friday.
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The father found out about the conversation after he received an alert on Family Time, an app that helps parents monitor their kids’ activity on mobile devices.
He learned that his daughter had downloaded Facebook Messenger. He looked at the messages and said they were “disgusting.”
“Send me a picture” was the first text that alarmed him.
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The father eventually found out that the man and his daughter were planning to meet in a tent in the backyard that very night, according to News 9.
So the family decided to set up a sting.
They invited the man to come meet in the tent, pretending to be the teen girl, KSWO reported.
The girl’s stepmother was stationed inside the tent while the father, a nephew and a cousin stayed just inside the back door.
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The man arrived at 12:52 a.m.
“You walked into the wrong backyard,” the father told KOCO.
A surveillance video showed the nephew jumping off the porch and grabbing the man. The father bound the man’s hands together with zip ties.
The man admitted that he had gone there to have sex with the teenage girl, KOCO reported.
“I felt it was my duty as a father to take care of my daughter,” the girl’s father told News 9.
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Police arrested the man who showed up in the yard and he was charged on complaints of unlawful communication by the use of technology as well as using a phone and social media to communicate with a minor, according to KOCO.
He was later bonded out of jail.
Maj. Jody Suit of the Del City Police Department said that officers do not recommend that people carry out their own sting operations.
But according to The Washington Post, he added, “As a parent, I don’t blame him. I think it’s your right to protect your children.”
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