Police are investigating a team's efforts to catch sex offenders in Athens

Athens-Clarke Police recently received a call to respond to an unusual situation that they had not faced before.

An Oconee County man with a YouTube channel hatched a plan to catch what he believed was a sex offender who was targeting an underage boy. The sting was about to go down. It was caught on camera and the man called the police.

But the police report shows that the officer did not want to appear. At least not while the sting was unfolding.

According to the police report released Sept. 24, the situation came to a head on Sept. 15 outside the Walmart on Lexington Road.

When an officer arrived, she met with YouTuber James A. Spence, a 43-year-old contractor who had worked in law enforcement for 20 years. The suspect, a 44-year-old man from Athens, was also at the crime scene.

Spence explained to a police officer how he had documented social media conversations with the suspect.

“I made him think I was a 13-year-old boy,” Spence said when contacted by the Banner-Herald. The male decoy used in the trap was a 19-year-old friend of one of Spence’s daughters.

Police discovered that Spence had recorded several text messages containing explicit conversations as well as some photos of the suspect on their phones.

The suspect allowed the officer to search his vehicle and nothing was found that could link him to the sexual conversations. Instead, the man told the officer he was “concerned about the 13-year-old he was supposed to be meeting and that he wanted to provide services or help.”

Based on what was discovered at the crime scene, the officer did not arrest the man.

Spence told police and the Banner-Herald that the incident was videotaped for a YouTube channel. He said Wednesday he plans to release it whether or not police charge the man.

He explained that the sample was modeled after other YouTube channels that also created situations to catch suspected sex offenders. A similar NBC Dateline reality series that aired about 20 years ago featured spot checks on sex offenders orchestrated by reporter Chris Hansen. This show led to the arrest of numerous suspects.

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Spence has a daughter who he said travels to Texas and acts as a decoy for a YouTube channel in that state to catch predators.

“Talking to her, watching the videos and working with my background, I found it interesting,” he said of the reasons he created his own channel.

What happened Sept. 15 was their first investigation, said Spence, who was accompanied that day by the teenage decoy and a 25-year-old Athens man.

“We have a few more on the deck that we are investigating,” he said.

Spence noted that police just released the incident report, so it gives them time to do something or not do something before the video is shown.

He acknowledged that while these groups that catch sex offenders are popular on YouTube channels, law enforcement often doesn’t like dealing with them.

“They worry about things like entrapment, but entrapment doesn’t apply to a civilian. This is for government officials,” he said.

And many patrol officers are unfamiliar with these things, he said.

“In my opinion we had enough to incriminate him, otherwise I wouldn’t have started the stabbing when I did,” he said.

Spence said he called police before meeting the suspect and explained to an officer what they had.

“She told me like she always does that we can’t get out – it’s a trap. But I respectfully told her that’s not the case and I’m giving you the opportunity to come over and see what we have because we’ll call you later to file a police report and give you what we have,” Spence said.

Later, the officer’s sergeant called and again they discussed the matter and the sergeant told Spence to call after the stabbing occurred and an officer would respond.

Police Lt. Jody Thompson said the matter had been referred to the Criminal Investigation Department, but they would not comment at this time.

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