Students Charged in To Catch a Predator TikTok Scheme

Five college students in Massachusetts are accused of luring a man to the Assumption University campus in a plot that the police said was inspired by the television show “To Catch a Predator” and a fad on TikTok.The students were part of a larger group that chased the man from a campus building after he was invited there by a student on the dating app, Tindr, expecting to meet an adult, according to a criminal complaint issued in Worcester District Court on Dec.4.The campus police at Assumption University, a small Catholic school in Worcester, said in the complaint that the group accused the man of being a sexual predator, stopped him from leaving a student lounge and recorded the episode as part of a “deliberately staged event.”Two students assaulted the man, the police said.There was no indication that the man was trying to meet underage girls and the woman who invited him to the campus, Kelsy Brainard, 18, said on her Tindr profile that she was 18 years old, the police said.

The police did not provide the man’s age.Videos of the episode, which happened on Oct.1, were shared among students and seen by the police, who said that minutes after the man arrived on campus, he was watching a baseball game on a couch in a student lounge with Ms.

Brainard and there was “ample personal space between them.”Suddenly, a large group of students appeared from hidden locations, the complaint said.The students berated the man “as a sexual offender,” grabbed him and blocked him from leaving the room, the police said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....