Late on a Saturday night in McAllen, Texas, Sanjay Singhania was awoken by a call from a phone number he didn’t recognize. The man on the line said that Mr. Singhania’s son, Akash, was being arrested.
The stranger was not trying to be helpful. He sounded amused.
Mr. Singhania hung up and tried to call Akash, 25, who lived in Dallas but was visiting Los Angeles. He did not pick up.
The family had turned on location sharing on their iPhones, so Mr. Singhania could see where Akash was: Santa Ana, just south of Los Angeles. Mr. Singhania called the Santa Ana police department while his wife called their other son to get him searching, too.
Akash’s brother found him. He sent his parents a link to a show on the livestreaming service Kick called “CATCHING CHILD PREDATORS!” Mr. Singhania’s wife slipped a nitroglycerin pill under her tongue because she felt as if she was going to have a heart attack.
Not long before, in a suburban park 1,500 miles away in Santa Ana, a half dozen people crouched behind a vine-covered wall, whispering and pumping themselves up for a confrontation. They were led by a man in a hooded sweatshirt named Vitaly who provided a running commentary to a camera, energy drink in hand. Akash was coming to the park to hook up with a woman he had met online. The woman had been texting Akash on a hookup app, but she was a decoy working with Vitaly and his crew, and told them that Akash thought she was 16.
Vitaly shadowboxed with a tree while waiting for Akash and the woman to walk past the hiding spot. As the minutes passed, the number of people watching the livestream ticked up to more than 24,000. Akash and the woman finally appeared and, as the woman peeled off, …
I say this entire thing is absurd and completely unjustified because, 16 year olds are old enough to consent to sex. If you don’t believe me, just ask the UK. They’ll vouch for that.