CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- A local man who's devoted his life to fighting against child sexual predators is now being targeted by those very offenders.
David Rowe and his team have done a lot in our area to make sure offenders are known to the public. “The way I look at it is somebody has to do something. Pedophilia has become a full blown epidemic."
He formed No Peace for Predators after Somer Thompson was kidnapped and murdered. Ever since then, the watchdog group works to expose who they call the worst of the worst, sex predators. Just last year, they got an ice cream truck out of the hands of registered sex offender, Jackie Hall. If someone like Hall moves to the area, Rowe and his team spread the word with fliers.
“We go to their next door neighbor’s house; we go to the stores they shop in. Everywhere they could possibly lay foot and we put their faces everywhere,” said Rowe.
But now, Rowe says, an underground group of registered sex offenders are trying to do the same thing to him. “They're trying to paint me as this monster."
According to Rowe, disgruntled sex predators are distorting his character on blogs and social media sites like Facebook. They call him a violent vigilante. Action News did some digging and discovered that Rowe was recently arrested for fighting at a local bar. But he says that doesn't make him the monster, some are calling him online.
“That we go out and do harm to these people and that's not the case at all. We've never touched anybody,” said Rowe. “We're here to let the people know who these guys are, what they've done and what they're capable of doing."
Rowe says he reported the group, Campaign for Freedom, to Facebook but the content has not been taken down. Campaign for Freedom says it's devoted to ending vigilantism and reforming sex offender laws.
