It was a great idea, in theory. For a thief, that is. Ernest Johnson created a dating profile in order to connect with people… so he could rob them. His victims created dating profiles so that they could go on dates with women, and the meetups went not at all as they expected. Rather than showing up and finding their lovely date waiting, they found a man with a gun.
Talk about taking catfishing to the extreme.
When you engage in dating apps, you are knowingly taking the risk that someone on the other side of the screen might be a bad actor, and hoo boy is that ever what went down this time.
Basically, here’s what happened. Ernest Johnson created a profile on a dating app, only instead of presenting himself; he posed as an attractive woman, and agreed to meet up with men who expressed interest in her. They set up a date, and when the big day rolled around, instead of the woman they’d been wooing online; they found the business end of Johnson’s gun, and began rapidly emptying their pockets.
If he didn’t want dinner and a movie, he could’ve just said so, yeesh.
The victims understandably weren’t super thrilled with the whole situation. Finding out that they’d really been wooing a man who is very much not their type was probably rough enough, but then to have that man turn around and hold them at gunpoint until they hand over their valuables… yikes.
In this particular tale of FAFO, we have not one, but TWO parties on the F*ck Around side of things. The perpetrator; and the victims both could have done things a little differently.
The perpetrator: duh. He chose to hold people at gunpoint after convincing them they’d be on a romantic interlude with someone they were attracted to. That was never going to have a happily ever after for him, no one takes that kind of ouch well, and the police were always going to get involved. He has now been charged, and gets to hang out in jail unless he comes up with $500,000 in cash. Quite the Find Out, and he frankly deserves it. One can only get away with the catfish game for so long before someone notices you’re a mighty big fish in a little pond.
How are the victims also members of the F*ck Around side of things? Well, while we want to make it abundantly clear that what happened to them was absolutely not their fault— no one arrives on a date expecting someone to pull a gun on them, unless they’re into some VERY SPECIFIC AND PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED role-playing— when one is utilizing online dating apps, extra caution must be taken in order to avoid winding up in a situation like this. When meeting people online, if something even remotely feels like a red flag, it’s best to assume that right there is not only a red flag, but that the red flag is on fire. Run.
A few safety tips for online dating:
Meet in a public space that will have other people. Built-in witnesses tend to reduce risk of foul play.
Do your research. Look for your potential paramour online. If you can’t find them anywhere on social media, chances are that they are indeed too good to be true.
Tell a friend about your plan, or even insist that you bring them along on a first meet-up to ensure safety.
Don’t reveal personal information to someone you’ve just swiped to connect with. Bad idea.
Have a video chat first so that you can see the person you’ve been chatting with is actually the person that you’ll be meeting up with in that public space.
Next time you swipe right, do a little extra leg work and make sure that the person on the other end isn’t going to swipe your wallet. Be safe out there, friends. The world of online dating can be like the Wild West, and we’d sure love to see less people needing a sheriff ‘bout these parts.
