A Michigan vigilante who amassed thousands of social media followers with his unauthorized hunts for pedophiles was shot and killed in a confrontation with two teenagers, police said.
Robert Wayne Lee, 40, of Pontiac, was better known as Boopac Shakur online, where he would often pose as a 15-year-old girl to expose alleged predators.
Authorities say that Lee accused one of the teens at a local restaurant of being a pedophile and punched him—leading one of the boys to pull out a knife and the other to fire a gun. The suspects fled but were later arrested.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office noted Lee’s unsanctioned activities—and their uneven results—in a news release about his slaying.
“His one-man crusade has led to the arrest and criminal charges being filed against several men,” it said. “He has also mistakenly identified someone as a sexual predator who was not.”
Videos that Lee posted to Facebook showed him confronting the men he corresponded with while posing as a minor in the style of the show To Catch a Predator.
A GoFundMe to benefit his daughter said Lee “dedicated his life to protecting the innocence of our children from those with malicious intentions. Through his courageous efforts, he successfully exposed 132 predators who sought to harm our community’s youth.”
However, in January, police confirmed just four arrests based on Lee’s videos, according to the Oakland Press. Police had asked Lee to stop his sting operations, but he persisted and even announced classes for others who wanted to follow suit.
Lee denied he was a vigilante. “I’m a concerned citizen,” he told the Press. “A vigilante is doing police work without a badge.”
“I’m just putting the fishing pole in the water and seeing who’s biting,” he added.
While they managed to catch 4 people, out of a total of 132 people that doesn’t sound very good, and might have even made it harder for the police to catch these people. One of them was found to be innocent, what if more of them were?
I really don’t understand the boner so many Americans seem to have for vigilantism
Just fix your goddamn police system - there’s a reason why vigilantism is outlawed since it’s too easy to misjudge or misidentify stuff and the consequences are horrible - let professionals do their job properly
Oh sure, lemme just fix the police system real quick. Give me a minute. I don’t know why nobody thought of that!
Why don’t I just strap on my fix the police system helmet and hop in the fix the police system cannon and fire myself into fix the police system town where police reform grows on trees?
While we do have a problem with vigilantes deciding that their contribution is vitally necessary to keep things running (see: Kyle Rittenhouse), I’m not really sure this qualifies as vigilantism in support of the law or even to protect kids from predators. Honestly, this just strikes me as yet another wannabe influencer/YT ‘star’, only instead of ‘restoring’ old items, cleaning cars/yards/houses, edging over weird ‘recipes’, or popping pimples, this guy’s schtick was ‘going after pedophiles’.
We’ve tried that, but the problem is they can’t seem to do it without executing people, and/or the neighbor’s dog, for fun.
Fixing the police is great but I don’t think that’s enough to reduce child rape.
Find the causes—childhood abuse / neglect, most likely—and aggressively address these social ills. Find more reliable ways to rehabilitate and use it for those convicted. Among other things.
Policing doesn’t prevent crimes.
And it was never really intended to.
Vigilantism also doesn’t - what’s your point?
I never suggested that it did.
I think that’s just it right there. Our police system is completely broken and for-profit. People want justice. So out of desperation they’re seeking it themselves.
I think part of it has something to do with the popularity of superhero movies like Batman and such. Honestly I think having the world’s biggest movie production system has been a net negative for Americans and humanity as a whole.
Alan Moore, who wrote Watchmen, was trying to make this point through his media, but he also explicitly stated it in interviews. He was like, “Y’all do realize that superhero stuff is fascist power fantasy, right? You shouldn’t like this stuff as an adult.”
Love his work as Rasputin impersonator.
I went through a period where I binge watched a bunch of episodes of that show, but I read that it was difficult to convict some of the people they caught because adults posing as children to lure people into getting arrested is considered entrapment or something. Therefore, their method of catching them could be considered unlawful, leading to the case being thrown out.
Actual police has better stats than this dude, and police is garbage