Chris Hansen is back chasing down would-be sex offenders in new ‘Takedown’ series (Idaho)

[Woody]

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/02/chris-hansen-is-back-chasing-down-would-be-sex-offenders-in-new-takedown-series/

IDAHO FALLS — Over the past two decades, Chris Hansen’s investigations have led to hundreds of would-be sex criminals being stopped in their tracks.

Hansen is best-known for his role on ‘To Catch a Predator,’ one of NBC’s most-watched programs in the mid-2000s. The journalist went undercover with police and confronted men trolling online chat rooms hoping to meet teenagers for sex.

After 500 arrests and hundreds of millions of video views, men continue to try to meet children online and Hansen continues to go after them.

“Takedown with Chris Hansen” is a new program on TruBlu, a true crime streaming network. Hansen spoke with EastIdahoNews.com reporter Nate Eaton about the show and what he hopes to accomplish.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Worst news of the year for Matt Gaetz.

[Joe Kakistocracy]

Idaho is renowned for its plentiful supply of drag queens and school teachers who have ever mentioned the word 'gay' to their students.  Plenty of potential material for Hansen.

[Darthpi - Crush the Oligarchy]

Fully support going after sex offenders, but didn't Hansen's last show end when one of the pedophiles offed himself when he got caught? Hope they have some better precautions in place this time.

[soundchaser]

Mixed feelings about entrapment, and REALLY mixed feelings about entrapment as entertainment. This guy’s shtick has always struck me as a little gross, honestly.

[Ferguson97]

Fully support going after sex offenders, but didn't Hansen's last show end when one of the pedophiles offed himself when he got caught? Hope they have some better precautions in place this time.

What kind of precautions could they take to prevent something like that?

[Zedonathin2020]

Fully support going after sex offenders, but didn't Hansen's last show end when one of the pedophiles offed himself when he got caught? Hope they have some better precautions in place this time.

What kind of precautions could they take to prevent something like that?

Padded room at the looney bin?

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Mixed feelings about entrapment, and REALLY mixed feelings about entrapment as entertainment. This guy’s shtick has always struck me as a little gross, honestly.

On one hang I agree about the entertainment aspect. On the other hand, it’s too entertaining to watch a pedo cry for me to go against it that much. Sure it may be slightly unethical, but it’s fun to watch and it’s not like those creeps ever cared about what was ethical anyways.

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

Mixed feelings about entrapment, and REALLY mixed feelings about entrapment as entertainment. This guy’s shtick has always struck me as a little gross, honestly.

His old show wasn't entrapment. If it was any arrests from it would be invalid and the network would be open to some serious lawsuits.

What would be entrapment would be something like if someone was propositioned by a decoy claiming to a minor, said they are not interested in minors, and then received threats if they didn't proceed. Or if the decoy lied and said they were 18 and didn't claim to be underage until after a meeting had already been established and they were on their way. Something like that.

A good example is the Tim Lambesis from As I Lay Dying case. He asked a friend at his gym about getting a hitman to kill his wife, so he intentionally sought one out. His friend was concerned and talked to a lawyer, who told him that he could be held liable if he didn't report and Tim's wife was killed, so he reported it to the police. The police then set him up with an undercover cop who would pose as a hitman that Tim's associate "knew", and Tim would be recorded offering him money to kill his wife. However when Tim met the "hitman" he was actually very careful to not use words like "kill" or "dead" even though the undercover cop kept trying to get him to say such a thing. This would've potentially jeopardized the court case...but just before leaving Tim turned back to him and said "Just to be clear, I want her dead."

That's not entrapment. Now if the cop had started pressuring him or tried to mince his words to get him to say specifically he wanted his wife dead or killed, that would be a borderline case of it which is why the cop didn't do so. If the undercover cop threatened him unless he would say a "magic word", that's entrapment. But because Tim sought out the "hitman" of his own will and requested the hit entirely without provocation, it was totally not entrapping.

[emailking]

The decoys were always 18+ and claiming to be 15 or less.

[DaleCooper]

His old show was so fascinating. It was basically a hidden camera prank show mixed with Cops, occasionally interrupted by the infotainment news segments on the very real internet predator issue that the show used as the main source of its comedy. It really was a perfect blend of all the tropes of mid-2000s exploitation. I think the suicides and subsequent lawsuits are what ended it because it was definitely a big money-maker for the network. This new show just doesn't look like it has the same charm as the old one. I doubt it will last long.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Chris Hansen has apparently been doing a lot of scamming including shilling knock-off phones made by Pablo Escobars brother.


https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/zf5q52/reality_tv_the_rise_and_fall_of_to_catch_a/

[TheTide]

My reaction:

[Neocon Dem]

He should check the airport bathrooms in the state, if a certain former Senator still lives there.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Watch John Swan's video series on the guy. He's a total fraud who promotes scams, terribly mishandled work, literally isn't the one doing most of the work, associates with extremely shady people and abuses the copyright system.

[Abolish ICE]

I never watched Hansen’s old show and only knew about him b/c of the South Park episode, so I did some research.  Here are my thoughts at this point:

Ultimately, far more good than bad came from Chris Hansen show.  I mean, he seems like he’s kinda sketchy and all, but the folks he exposed were pedophiles trying to have sex with children.  It’s objectively a really good thing they were caught, period.  Some of the pedophiles caught due to Hansen’s old show included an elementary school teacher, a criminal investigator with DHS, a police officer (who apparently brought several guns with him when he showed up which makes you wonder if he was planning an abduction and/or murder as well), multiple former police officers, a former church music director, and an assistant district attorney.  Apparently, another guy actually got convicted twice as a result of getting caught in two separate To Catch a Predator sting operations.

The guy who killed himself, Rockwell County Assistant District Attorney Bill Conradt, did not go to the house.  However, he did send sexually explicit photos to what he thought was a 13 year old boy and was pretty clearly looking to have sex with young boys as well.  When police tried to serve him with a search warrant, Conradt killed himself.  

Interestingly enough, the Rockwell County district attorney’s office had been vehemently opposed to any sort of sting operation in the county by TCaP and tried really hard to kill any cooperation between the show and local law enforcement whereas the local police chief made a point of concealing from the DA’s office that they’d decided to work with TCaP while letting the Rockwell County DA’s office think it had successfully killed TCaP’s efforts to do a sting in Murphy, Texas.  This makes me wonder if there were already rumors/suspicions about Conradt locally and the Rockwell County DA’s office was trying to avoid the risk of a scandal if he got exposed.  At the very least, it’s clear reading between the lines that the Murphy, TX Police Chief didn’t trust the Rockwell County DA’s office as far as he could throw them (could’ve also been for any number of unrelated reasons though).  We’ll probably never know at this point, but one wonders.  

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Mixed feelings about entrapment, and REALLY mixed feelings about entrapment as entertainment. This guy’s shtick has always struck me as a little gross, honestly.

I've heard this has made legal defences for paedophiles caught on the show somewhat easier, but on the other hand: they almost never get caught to begin with when only the proper channels are used.

The sensationalism of the format corrupts this somewhat, but the show still raises some awareness. I think it's better to be misinformed by this show's profiles than assume paedophile is just another word for pastor/gay person depending on your political outlook.