Tommy Fellows isn’t your normal Atlantic City visitor.
The Colorado man didn’t come for the beaches or the casino.
Instead, he was searching for a man molesting his own niece.
Fellows runs the YouTube channel Colorado Ped Patrol, whose mission is to hunt down online child predators.
But his Atlantic City mission hit a detour when his target apparently got scared and blocked the group.
Fellows and two similar groups he planned to meet up with were not deterred.
A supporter got them a house in Atlantic County, and Fellows along with LC Predator Catcher and Creeps Spotlight got to work.
“We turned on the phone, turned on the Grindr,” he told BreakingAC.
And soon they had some hits.
The group wound up with four men charged and another captured on video confessing to his grown son that he got caught trying to meet up with a teen girl for sex.
Colorado Ped Patrol will debut that video at 9 Sunday night.
BreakingAC has been unable to confirm where that case stands.
But Fellows said he believes police are pursuing it.
“I’ve worked with other police departments, and Atlantic City, by far, is the best I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “Every single detective thanked us. They were amazing, absolutely amazing.”
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The experience even pushed Musa Harris to start trying to work with police. He has run LC Predator Catcher out of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania for more than a year.
Three men remain jailed awaiting detention hearings from the groups’ visit. Robert Heinz was released with conditions after his hearing.
A worker where Heinz lives told BreakingAC they received threats from people wanting to harm Heinz.
“We do not promote violence,” Fellows said.
After just three months’ of work, Fellows already had 64 captures when he made the trip to Atlantic County.
He quit his job to put everything into his mission, sparked by the abuse his own son endured.
Fellows was the only one who believed the boy when he first came forward with his accusations. Now, his predator is serving a long prison term.
But Fellows didn’t always call police with every catch. In fact, he would give the men a chance to come clean to avoid police.
Then a detective in Colorado asked Fellows who he was to decide who should and shouldn’t be charged. What if the man went on to victimize a child?
As a result, he spent about 25 hours in the police station total with the local arrests.
“We should have gotten 20 catches easy,” Fellows said of the trip.
He intends to return.
In the meantime, he is now back in Colorado and has made more catches there.
