Police are investigating after a wild ‘creep catcher’ type video was shot in Campbell River.
The online video shows a confrontation between Justin Payne, a self-described creep catcher from Toronto, and the man behind the wheel of a car.
Payne claims the man is a sexual predator.
“I wanted to put an end to a whole year of conversation with the sickest person I’ve ever talked to in my life,” Payne told CTV News.
The video was recorded last week in a Campbell River parking lot after Payne travelled across the country to expose the man.
CTV is concealing the man’s identity because he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Payne says he pretended to be a 14-year-old boy when he chatted with the man over the phone.
“I guess he believed the voice so much, he didn’t even think that anything, anybody could be a cop or something to confront him,” Payne said.
The Toronto man says he felt compelled to make the long drive because the Vancouver Island man told Payne he was a former B.C. school teacher.
“To me I don’t think an individual would make up a story like that,” Payne stated. “I mean I waited long enough to put all the pieces together, contacting the school that he used to work at.”
According to Payne, the school has no record of the man. But Payne says he’s convinced because he’s seen the man’s yearbook.
Campbell River RCMP are remaining tight-lipped on the incident, only saying they are investigating.
“The RCMP is not beholden to telling us what is happening in an investigation,” said Sean Smith, a social media educator in Campbell River. “So for all we know, this effort by this person, again a noble effort, may have potentially disrupted an active investigation by the RCMP.”
Smith is warning the public against convicting the man over social media.
“Somebody’s created a meme, which has this gentleman’s face, it has his vehicle, it has his licence numbers and all that falls under the privacy act,” Smith said. “Guilty until proven innocent is not the way it is supposed to go.”
Shortly after the video surfaced the man in the video moved out of the trailer park he was living at, according to reports on social media.
