Alaskans are accustomed to reading about the thinning out of predators like bears and wolves in Alaska to enable the caribou and moose to thrive.
But in Texas, they’re thinning out human predators around the country. Or sometimes just outing them on social media.
Alex Rosen, the founder of Houston-based vigilante organization “Predator Poachers,” conducted a sting operation that has evidently ensnared the LGBTQ+ chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party — a high-profile Democrat leader who has been a regular guest at the White House and at Vice President Kamala Harris’ home.
With a camera rolling, Rosen confronted Michael Knaapen after he had allegedly communicated with Knaapan for over an hour through the fake persona of a 14-year-old boy, which Rosen says Knaapen then proceeded to send sexual messages and videos to, including photos and videos of himself masturbating.
“Rosen walked up to Knaapen while he was in a restaurant and brought him outside to engage him about the messages he allegedly had with the teenager. Rosen asked Knaapen about multiple different explicit messages that he was allegedly sending to a 14-year-old boy. Knaapen seemed to admit to the messages on video,” wrote the Post Millennial website.
The Maryland Democratic Party has since removed all evidence of Knaapen from its website after Rosen made public the receipts from that online encounter on Thursday. Knaapen has erased all of his own social media presence.
In an edgier version of the television show “To Catch a Predator,” Rosen launched Predator Poachers in 2019 to get pedophiles who use the internet for hunting their young prey locked up.
“Predator Poachers is a group of independent journalists and private citizens who travel the country conducting intervention-style sting operations to catch child predators. OUR MISSION is to take pedophiles offline, off the streets, and away from kids, one predator at a time,” his website states.
Rosen’s website claims to have helped with evidence that led to the arrest of at least three men who were trying to meet children as young as 9 on the internet.
In the video of the encounter, Rosen can be be heard repeating to Knaapen what he had supposedly written to Rosen: “Some of this stuff said here … like, you know, ‘I want to rape you,’ … ‘I want to see how much of a fa–ot you are.'”
At that point another member of the Predator Poacher team added, “You said, ‘I hope you try to get away once I start f—ing you. You need a good raping.'”
“I like the fantasy,” said the man who is said to be Knaapan. “And he seemed to enjoy it and I didn’t know this person and I never intended to do it. I thought it was sexy and fun, and I don’t picture the kid.”
Until his profile was removed from the Democrats’ website, it stated, “His profile on the Maryland Democrats page stated, “Michael Knaapen (Mike, he/him) is a native Wisconsinite who has lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, for all but one of the past ten years. There he has helped form and lead the LGBTQ Democrat of Montgomery County, lobbied in Annapolis for LGBTQ measures, and organized Stonewall Riot commemorative events.”
Knaapen will not be prosecuted, Rosen explained, because according to state law of Maryland, the recipient of such sexual overtures must either be a police officer or a child. Otherwise, a citizen-led sting does not qualify as a chargeable offense.
