Posted on 08/14/2007 4:27:34 AM PDT by Dudoight
The show was an instant success. It lured would-be child-sex predators to a public shaming, delivered by a handsome host. Ratings, awards and even praise from members of Congress followed. But now Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series is taking heat. And so is the police chief of the Collin County town that hosted it eight months ago. The troubles stem from the show's visit to Murphy, where more than 20 people were arrested but escaped prosecution because of evidence problems. Also a former district attorney ensnared in the sting shot himself.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
BS. Those men don’t accidentally email a picture of themselves naked to a 13 year-old girl. This is already happening throughout the country. NBC just merged into the traffic.
The reason they are catching so many people is that so many people are doing it. This is just a minute part of it.
The only time I ever did chat, I was propositioned. And I was 38 when it happened. I deleted IRC after that happened.
So you are saying that NBC owes the DA's sister $105M because her brother was so mentally unstable that he shot himself?
THOUGHT??? He propositioned a minor. He gave her enough information to bust him. He was doing more than thinking. He was trying to get busy. If he was just "thinking", how did the police find him?
That has not been proven, particularly not in the case of former Kaufman County District Attorney Louis "Bill" Conradt Jr. After all, Conradt did not even go into the house. He did not talk to the decoy.
Under the rules, such as they were, NBC would have let this one go. But a former county District Attorney was too big a fish to let off the hook, so they pursued him to his home. They barged into his home with cameras rolling instead of arresting him at the door, in order to get good footage of him running away. Unfortunately, at the end of the hall was a room with a gun, and Conradt wound up killing himself.
So, a man is dead. Let's pause over the body and look at what went wrong, here. Assuming that you consider a dead guy a problem, of course...
1. We don't know the guy was guilty. There are a lot of alternate explainations for his behavior, one of which is that he was actually trying to help a child whom he thought was being exploited. This is the very thing a proper arrest and trial would determine.
2. The police did not follow their own rules. The police did not even follow NBC's made-up rules when deciding to raid Conradt's house. Those rules are there for a reason, which is to protect the innocent from police harrassment. Without sufficient cause, the police are simply not allowed to barge in and ruin your life. Nor should they.
3. The police did not control the arrest. This is the most unforgivable error, IMHO, and the one that is going to put NBC on the hook for a huge settlement. As a former DA, it was entirely forseeable that Conradt would have a gun in the house. But instead of asking him to voluntarily surrender, the police raided the house without controlling the subject first. The chase down the hallway and the subsequent suicide was entirely avoidable. But NBC was interested in dramatic footage for TV, and so they came in with their bright lights and cameras and hounded this man to death.
And note, the man they hounded to the point of death is the one for which they had the least reliable evidence.
Yo. How do you think they found him?
That “DA” was a sick SOB that was trying to seduce a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BOY. He received appropriate justice, even though it was from his own hand.
I have absolutely NO sympathy for people who abuse children.
AMEN!
I don't know. An innocent man wouldn't blow his brains out. I think it is safe to assume he was guilty. He was a DA, not a garbage truck driver. He could have OWNED NBC if he was innocent and he knew that.
He knew he was busted.
Perhaps this man committed suicide because he knew that his face was going to be all over NBC, and he was going to be accused of attempting to have sex with a minor, but in fact he was not doing so.
There are a lot of alternate scenarios. Perhaps he was trying to help somebody he thought was a minor caught up in a tragic situation. Perhaps the thought it was all an adult role-playing game, and he was attempting to have sex with an adult.
We don't know. Now we will never know. We should demand a higher standard than "perhaps".
No doubt this is often true. But it is not necessarily true in every case, and particularly not in the case of the dead guy.
It would also seem to me that the dead guy is the one who pulled the trigger.
I have to congratulate you on a new low: a pro-pedophile post that also contains race-baiting. Kudos.
You would think that if the problem was as pervasive as Dateline makes it out to be, these child predators would be able to walk to their victim's house.
Another thing. What's the point (other than schadenfreude)? This isn't deterring these predators. As time progresses, more and more of them admit to watching the show!
Your argument migth have more weight if it were at all accurate. The man had an online conversation with the "girl" where he (according to the show) set up a meeting. He never went to the meeting. So the TV crew packed up the cameras and went to his house.
At that point, only the statements of the crew allege any wrongdoing on his part (he never made the overt act required by the law in that area). In fact, considering the DA has thrown out all of the charges against the others, the word of the crew that he committed a crime (as opposed to them suggesting the meeting, etc.) is seriously compromised.
I'm a supporter of the death penalty for child molesters. But I do think in order to be a child molester... you kinda' have to molest a child or something...
I think they already have.
It is a legitimate function of law enforcement to deal with these people.
But there are rules in place for this sort of thing. The rules are there for a reason. Many of these rules are "written in blood", as they say, because they are the result of lessons learned when people died.
NBC threw all of those rules out the window, and a man died.
The dead guy would be alive if he was innocent. NBC had the goods on him. That’s how they managed to find him. Lord, you people are naive sometimes.
You are right, I probably should have phrased it differently. A good ‘side effect’ of boosting their ratings was catching child predators.
The point is not to deter the predators. They are so perverted, it’s hard to dent them. It’s to wake up the parents. It is having an impact among my friends who have teen daughters.
My daughter, who sang at the Impeachment Rally when she was 5, is 13 now. I know what goes on with the computer.
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