'Mob' of college students attack man in TikTok-inspired trap, police say
The group in Massachusetts chased a man who was falsely accused of being a sexual predator.Jan. 6, 2025, 9:14 PM EST
By Tim Stelloh and David Douglas
Six college students in Massachusetts were accused of luring an active-duty service member whom they falsely described as a sexual predator to their campus, where a group of more than two dozen people chased and assaulted him, authorities said.
One of the students who was charged told police that the plot was modeled on “To Catch a Predator,” NBC’s discontinued program that, during its three seasons, aimed to catch adults seeking to prey on minors using undercover cameras and decoys impersonating underage dates, according to a statement of facts in the case.
“Catch a predator is a big thing on TikTok currently,” the facts document cites the student, Easton Randall, 19, as saying.
Eleven Illinois teens were charged last month in a similar incident that authorities in Mount Prospect, northwest of Chicago, attributed to a “viral social media trend.”
In a statement at the time, the city’s police department did not provide additional details about the trend. Police Chief Michael Eterno pleaded with parents “to take these incidents as an opportunity to talk with their teenage children about the seriousness of actively participating in these types of trends they see on social media.”
At Assumption University, the private Catholic university in Worcester where the six people charged in the plot are students, there was “absolutely” no evidence that the man students accused of being a predator had been seeking sex with a minor, the statement says.
Still, he was chased by what the statement describes as a “mob” of 25 to 30 people — some of them recording the pursuit — and ensnared in a conspiracy carried out by a group of six that includes allegations of “systemic mistreatment, false imprisonment, physical assault and battery and potential character assassination,” according to the university police sergeant who wrote the statement.
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Home to attend a funeral
According to the statement of facts, the incident on Oct. 1 was initially reported to university officials the next day, when Brainard said a “creepy” Tinder app contact had come to campus looking to meet a 17-year-old girl. She texted a friend — Randall — who chased the person away, according to the statement.
In a subsequent interview with campus police, Brainard reiterated this claim, saying she had been the victim of unsolicited contact, according to the statement.
Campus authorities were later connected to the service member by the Worcester Police Department, which provided a starkly different account.
He told campus police that he had been home to attend his grandmother’s funeral and began messaging with someone on Tinder because he “just wanted to be around people that were happy,” according to the statement.
He and Brainard planned to connect, he told police, and she invited him to meet at a campus alumni hall, according to the statement.
Attacked by a mob
He had been inside the building for a few minutes, the statement says, “when a group of people came out of nowhere and started calling him a pedophile and accusing that he liked 17-year-old girls.”
“He was unable to leave due to being grabbed and held back from leaving,” the statement says. “The subject reported that he was able to break free and ran up the stairs being chased by a group of 25 or more people.”
He told police he was chased to his car, punched in the head and had his car door slammed on him, the statement says. After he was able to flee campus, he dialed police, the statement says.
A review of campus security video detailed in the statement confirmed the victim’s account. The video captured students berating the victim as a sexual predator, recording the pursuit as they chased him and high-fiving one another a few minutes later, after one of the accused was captured slamming the man’s car door on his head, according to the statement.
A review of Tinder messages showed the service member believed he was meeting an 18-year-old, the statement says. The woman's profile indicated she was 18. When officers followed up with Brainard about where the information about an underage girl came from, the statement adds, “she could not answer.”
‘Call police or kick their ass’
Randall told authorities that after having learned that Brainard was messaging with the victim, six students came up with the idea of luring him to campus.
“He reported that it was like the Chris Hansen videos where you ‘catch a predator and either call the police or kick their ass,’” the statement says, referring to the host of “To Catch a Predator.”
The show, which aired from 2004 to 2007, used hidden cameras and people posing as minors in online chat rooms to lure alleged predators to houses where Hansen would confront them. The program did not condone or include any violence.
After a Texas prosecutor who was the subject of one of the show’s investigations died by suicide, his family sued the network for $105 million in 2007. NBC settled the following year for an undisclosed amount and said the matter had been “amicably resolved.”
In his interview with campus police, Randall said he and several others made suggestions about what Brainard should say in her messages to the service member, the statement says. After they lured him to campus, the group then “rallied” others at the college using an alumni group chat — a move that provoked the “rabid response” from the dozens who participated in the event, according to the statement.
Afterward, according to the statement, Randall acknowledged to authorities: “This got out of hand and went bad.”
