By Austin De Dios
oregonlive.com
ALBANY, Ore. — Albany police officers arrested a 34-year-old Corvallis man on an outstanding warrant on Friday.
Nothing unusual about that.
But they tracked him down with help from an unexpected — and mostly unwelcome — source: a YouTuber who’s made a living ensnaring alleged child predators.
Internet personality JiDion, who leads a group called EDP Watch that coordinates sting operations to catch suspected sex offenders, set up a fake meeting to lure Charles Mellick to an Albany Walmart, as first reported by KGW. The city’s police department responded and arrested Mellick on a warrant for violating his parole, spokesperson Laura Hawkins said.
Police are also investigating Mellick, who is a registered sex offender, on sex charges alleged in the vigilante operation, Hawkins said. JiDion and his team use decoys posing as under-age youth online to arrange meetings with potential suspects. The police department was not contacted by EDP Watch ahead of time, police said. Officials warned that these operations can be dangerous when law enforcement isn’t consulted.
“We need a little more information walking into something like this, especially in a public setting,” Hawkins said. “We don’t know how this is going to go down or if this person is armed.”
JiDion defended his team’s work Monday, and told The Oregonian /OregonLive that they take precautions to make sure no one is harmed.
“Our biggest thing is safety because obviously we don’t want anything to happen to us or them,” he said. “We don’t antagonize them, we don’t berate them or anything. We just have a God-honest conversation.”
JiDion said he had a decoy pose as a 13-year-old girl to organize a meeting with Mellick at the Walmart, and that his team checked Mellick for weapons before talking to him.
Mellick is one of three arrests in Oregon directly tied to tips from EDP Watch. Keizer Police Department made separate arrests for 29-year-old Kyle Monroy and 41-year-old Christopher Loyd on Thursday, according to police. Both men were booked into Marion County Correctional Facility on first-degree charges for online sexual corruption of a child, the police department said.
Vigilante stings like these are not uncommon. Similar efforts by citizen groups led to an arrest of Washington high school teacher Kevin Weeks , who was sentenced to 1½ years in Oregon prison after exchanging messages with a phony dating profile posing as a 14-year-old girl.
Hawkins said Albany police have worked with these kinds of groups before, but emphasized the importance of working with law enforcement. She said impromptu stings can compromise cases against child abusers.
“We want to get sexual predators off the street as much as everybody else, but we want to do it within the letter of the law for Oregon because we want to have a case that will go all the way through court and not be dismissed,” she said.
Keizer police said they agree with Albany officials that these civilian-led stings can be dangerous.
“Collaboration with law enforcement is safer and ensures the best chance that a successful prosecution is achieved,” spokesperson Trevor Wenning said in a statement.
JiDion admitted that the work can be dangerous, but stood by EDP Watch.
“We don’t want to be cops,” he said. “We just hope that the police hear our calls, and hear our cries for help. The community loves what we do and they support this.”
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— Austin De Dios covers Multnomah County politics, programs and more. Reach him at 503-319-9744, adedios@oregonian.com or @AustinDeDios.
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