The sting operation that resulted in the Saturday arrest of a man who allegedly traveled hours to Warren to have sex with a minor came together quickly.

It forced the City of Warren police to make some quick decisions.

Could they trust the work by the Erie Predator Catchers?

Would the defendant arrive in Warren as they were told he would?

“At the end of the day, certain departments don’t like to engage in these kind of sting operations,” City of Warren Police Joe Sproveri told the Times Observer. “To me, it was worth the risk and we had a successful outcome.

“We have a duty to exhaust any option we have to get these people off the streets.”

He described the Erie Predator Catchers as a “group of private citizens” that “take it upon themselves to investigate online child predators.”

They reached out to city police “and advised they are aware of an adult male from New York State attempting to meet up” with what he believed to be a 14-year-old female.

For city police, it’s an outside the box approach.

Sproveri said that the anti-predator group often finds police hesitant to work with them.

What made city police willing to sign off on it and move ahead?

“The benefit of getting somebody like this off the street,” Sproveri said. “(It) was worth the risk to try this new approach.”

That decision wasn’t without some review, though.

“There was a vetting process,” Sproveri said. “We weren’t necessarily going in on this blind.”

That vetting process included consulting the Warren County District Attorney’s Office for legal guidance.

“We had officers get all the information from the group,” First Assistant District Attorney Cody Brown said. “They were able to verify that information.”

Brown said a police investigation further confirmed the information the group had provided.

That confirmation is “what made us feel comfortable doing this kind of operation,” he said.

“They proved to us that all of their intel was actionable,” Sproveri added. “We conducted surveillance and watched him show up to do what he said he was going to do.”

Sproveri cautioned that police didn’t ask the Erie Predator Catchers to get involved.

“We did not tell these people to do anything. They took it upon themselves then they brought us the results,” he said.

And evidently the investigation they turned over to police was thorough.

“They basically hand you a predator on a silver platter and say ‘arrest him,'” City Police Captain Jeff Dougherty said.

Dougherty said he’s heard from members of the community that are “very pleased how that turned out” and thanked the officers and prosecutors involved.

Sproveri said he wouldn’t encourage citizens to do this work.

“But if they are educated on how it works, I see no reason to not work with them,” he said. “Moving forward it has to be a good deterrent.”

Police were willing to take the risk.

And it’s hard to argue with their rationale.

“If an investigation is brought to our attention and it has merit, we are going to follow up on it, period,” Sproveri said. “We owe that to our community.”

Brown concurred, calling this kind of information “not something we’re going to let go.

“I wanted to go forward with it,” he explained. “Anyone coming from wherever to meet children here, we don’t want to take that lightly.”

Brown said this case will now be “handled like any other case,” though he acknowledged it is “something different from me for sure.”

“Our department, our community, has zero tolerance for these types of people,” Sproveri said. “We have to do what we have to do to keep our kids safe.