Chris Hansen slams copycat streamers who film themselves confronting child predators

Chris Hansen is once again in the spotlight 19 years after To Catch a Predator ended as Robert Pattinson is set to play the TV host in the upcoming film Primetime.

The recent trailer has had fans calling for Pattinson to be nominated for an Oscar for the role before they even see the film, and this has led to many re-examining Chris Hansen’s controversial career of catching paedophiles in the act.

To Catch a Predator was cancelled in 2007 when a Texas attorney killed himself as Hansen’s team tried to confront him, with a SWAT team breaching the house leading him to commit suicide.

Despite this Hansen has continued with two separate spin-off shows, but arguably his influence has been more prominent in the copycats who have taken his style of confronting paedophiles and turned them into ‘content’ for Twitch and Kick live streams, something Hansen has decried in a new interview.

Hansen speaks out in a new interview on streamers who confront paedophiles for content

Hansen appeared in a newly released YouTube documentary about EDP445 by Mike Clum. EDP, whose real name is Bryant Moreland, was caught on two separate occasions attempting to meet up with a minor for sex.

Despite this, he is not in jail, in part due to the way in which the groups that arranged the operation carried out their sting. During the documentary Clum is trying to figure out why Moreland is not in jail when he decides to call Chris Hansen, who ends up interviewing the disgraced YouTuber about his attempts to meet up with children.

Chris Hansen interviewing EDP (YouTube/Mike Clum)

In this he admits that he had sent sexually explicit pictures to a 13-year-old and had been meeting up with her with the intention of having sex.

Hansen, speaking to camera, states that Alex Rosen who runs a group called ‘Predator Poachers’ who organised the sting ‘botched the investigation’ by messaging EDP first, making it ‘un-prosecutable’. He also said that if he had been running the investigation the YouTuber would be in jail right now.

The famous ‘Predator Catcher’ continued, suggesting that the video likely made Rosen money but that ‘it looks amateurish and sloppy’. Rosen admits in the documentary that he could’ve done a better job with the specific case.

This is not however the first time that Hansen has hit out at YouTubers who carry out ‘paedo stings’, despite them arguably being a direct legacy of To Catch a Predator.

Hansen said vigilantes online have the wrong motives in catching predators

Hansen slammed ‘vigilantes’ online who often will confront the predators in a public place and in many occasions attack them physically.

Speaking to Howie Mandel he said what he does is ‘very different’ to what streamers do because his cases are prosecutable and they often have the ‘wrong motives’.

He explained: “It's a it's a very important topic there are a lot of vigilante online people who will bait these guys, get them out in public and shoot them with a smoke Cannon or embarrass them or physically abuse them.

“The problem with that is first of all the motive which is usually for clicks and profit. I understand that we get paid to do a show too but our cases are prosecuted.

“Most of these cases [involving streamers] can't be prosecuted because they're so messy, there's no chain of evidence, they expose the guy, they put him on their YouTube channel, the police can't then get a warrant to get their electronic devices, their computers or their phones, they can't retrieve any evidence.”