A man who posed as a 15-year-old girl on social media to identify alleged sexual predators has been fatally shot during an argument in a restaurant.
Police have arrested two males, aged 17 and 18, in connection with the weekend shooting of Robert Wayne Lee, 40, of Pontiac, near Detroit.
Lee had gone by the name “Boopac Shakur” on social media. His crusade had led to criminal charges against several men, including a jail deputy, but his work also wrongly identified one person as a sexual predator, according to the local sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Lee had confronted the teenagers as they sat in a restaurant in Pontiac, about 48 kilometres northwest of Detroit. Lee and the 18-year-old got into an argument, at which point the 17-year-old pulled a gun at the table and shot Lee, who later died in hospital.
One of Lee’s videos posted to social media in 2022 led the sheriff’s office to arrest a probationary jail deputy who attempted to arrange a meeting and sex with someone he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.