Cheektowaga, N.Y. (WBEN) - Earlier this week, members of a local watchdog group confronted a man at the Walden Galleria mall, who had thought was meeting with a 15-year-old boy. The group had posed as the teenager online, and then met with him at the mall, all while filming the confrontation that lasted for nearly 45 minutes on social media.
Cheektowaga police were called to the mall and did detain the individual, but have not made any formal arrest or issued any charges as of Thursday morning.
"This was not something we were involved in up until the point that the social media influencer had met with this individual. And then at that point, he reached out to law enforcement and told us what had gone on to that point," said Cheektowaga Police Cpt. Jeffrey Schmidt in an interview with WBEN.
Schmidt says the important thing the public needs to understand with these types of complaints, especially from a social media influencer, there's no additional credence and no loss of credence that goes into any statements they make.
"Anyone who makes a complaint that says that a child is being targeted or attempted to be victimized by any type of crime, we're going to take it very seriously," said Schmidt with WBEN.
"It starts with an investigation, and that's an important thing. Sometimes when social media influencers, they build, what they would call, a case against someone and then at the last moment they reveal this to law enforcement, it doesn't mean we'll be immediately and initially able to take someone into custody and lay charges right away. What it does mean is we're going to start to collect evidence, we're going to start to collect information, and then we do have to build a case, according to the burden of the law, in order to make probable cause to make an arrest."
Schmidt says any type of vigilante work is going to be frowned on by law enforcement. He recommends anyone that may have any relevant information of a crime that has or is about to occur, it should be turned over to the proper authorities.
"Our officers are extraordinarily trained in what they can and cannot do to operate correctly under the law, and then exactly how we're able to build a case," Schmidt said. Now, what makes this a little bit more complex is anybody who's out there, they would say, 'This is for children. This is to protect children.' So it gets a little bit more charged. But just on its face, any person should not try to take the law into their own hands."
Schmidt does note the influencer has been very cooperative with the department's ongoing investigation, but warns others not to take one's findings outside of law enforcement and take it for face value.
"Sometimes what can happen is they have all of what this evidence that they believe they've collected, they build their story, and then they publish everything on their channel with the caveat of, 'Look, I built all this evidence, and now law enforcement did nothing.' They'll show we will interview this other individual, and then they'll walk away and they'll be free of custody," Schmidt explained. "But it's important to understand, just because we're not immediately arresting that individual does not mean we're not launching an extraordinarily thorough investigation. It does not mean that charges are not forthcoming. But we have to build up to a probable cause standard to lay charge. If we don't do that, if we were just to say, 'OK, let's arrest them immediately, because it'll play good in the news,' those charges are going to get thrown out of court, and no justice is going to get done anyway."
While this watchdog group was posing as a teenager online to confront the individual, Schmidt does warn parents across the region about these activities, and recommends parents to actively be part of your child's online life.
"You have to. And it's not just, 'OK, they're in a chat group.' It's Roblox, it's Snapchat, it's all of it. You have to immerse yourself in who they're speaking to, because predators are out there, they are targeting children. And the best protective measure we have is heavily involved parents," Schmidt said.