Last month, a group of eleven Illinois teenagers were charged in a case that officials in Mount Prospect, located northwest of Chicago, linked to a “viral social media trend.” The city’s police department did not provide specific details about the trend in their statement at the time. Police Chief Michael Eterno urged parents to use these incidents as an opportunity to discuss with their teenage children the importance of not engaging in such trends on social media.
At Assumption University, a private Catholic institution in Worcester where the six individuals involved in the incident are students, there was no evidence to suggest that the man accused of being a predator was seeking sex with a minor. Despite this, the man was pursued by a group of 25 to 30 people, some of whom recorded the chase. The incident allegedly involved mistreatment, false imprisonment, physical assault, battery, and potential character assassination, according to a statement from the university police sergeant.
The individuals involved, including five students charged with kidnapping and conspiracy, were identified in a criminal complaint filed last month. Two other students faced additional charges – Kelsy Brainard, 18, was charged with intimidation, while Kevin Carroll, 18, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Messages left with the lawyers for Carroll and another defendant were not returned. A relative of one of the individuals did not provide a comment, and attempts to contact others via phone and social media were unsuccessful.
Assumption University President Greg Weiner condemned the described behavior in the court filing as “abhorrent and antithetical” to the university’s values. He emphasized the importance of upholding respect, responsibility, and character within the university community. Weiner stated that once the incident was reported, the university’s Public Safety Department conducted an investigation and pursued criminal charges. The victim, an active-duty military service member, remains unidentified in terms of his military branch. The victim’s father expressed confidence in the authorities’ handling of the situation and noted that the students’ own words seem to have incriminated them.
The incident occurred on Oct. 1 and was reported to university officials the following day. Brainard reported that a suspicious individual from a dating app had come to campus seeking to meet a 17-year-old girl. After Randall intervened, the individual left campus. Brainard reiterated her account in a subsequent interview with campus police.
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
