AUSTIN, Texas — Five men are facing felony charges after allegedly assaulting a man outside an H-E-B grocery store in Lakeway last month.
According to an affidavit, at around 9:45 p.m. on Sept. 27, police responded to a call reporting a disturbance at the H-E-B located at 2000 Ranch Road 620. Callers reported that several men were chasing a Middle Eastern man inside the store and into the parking lot, calling him a pedophile.
Officers reviewed surveillance video and saw an incident between the men and the victim. A number of the men involved were filming as the incident took place, with one of them shouting to "check out" their YouTube page as they chased the man out of the store.
A witness was able to find a TikTok account belonging to one of the men, which showcased videos of him and other men confronting male victims and accusing them of being pedophiles, as well as one video featuring the owner of the account slapping someone in the face.
Police located the victim in the parking lot of a nearby Randall's grocery store, where he was suffering from a bloody nose, bloody feet and cuts on his limbs. The affidavit sates that he had difficulty communicating with police as English was his second language. He was later taken to the hospital by EMS.
Two days after the incident, Lakeway police received a tip notifying them of the other men who appeared in the video. A sargent with the Lakeway Police Department recognized the online username of one of the suspects based off previous incidents.
Police reviewed the video from the account, which showed the five men leaving a residence in Lakeway, driving to the H-E-B and eventually assaulting the victim. Police were able to use open-source technology and social media to identify the men in the videos, and confirmed their identities with assistance from the Austin Regional Intelligence Center by matching their faces with their government issued IDs.
In the video, the men were traveling in the same vehicle and discussing confronting the victim as they were traveling to the H-E-B. After arriving, one of the men asked another to film him as they waited for the victim to arrive. One of the men then started shadowboxing as he waited for the victim.
One of the men then called the victim, and they proceeded to confront the victim, according to the affidavit. One of the men told the victim he would "get slapped if he walked away," as he tried to flee from the group.
The victim then sprinted out of the store and was chased by the men. One of the men allegedly caught up with him, pushed him down and grabbed his legs to prevent him from running away.
Once all five men caught up, two of the men began hitting the victim in the face with both closed fists and open palms, the affidavit said. While on the ground, the victim began looking at his phone before one of the men grabbed it and threw it on the concrete. The victim is then shown on the video bleeding from his mouth saying, "I'm sorry" to the men. The entire confrontation lasted around three minutes before the men allowed the victim stand up, after which he ran away into the nearby parking lot.
Police reviewed the online accounts of the men and discovered that one of them was part of a group called "Dads Against Predators," or DAP, a self-proclaimed vigilante group who confront people they assume wants to meet up for an encounter with a child. The individuals are then often assaulted.
Police were informed in mid-October that the group was also involved in an alleged incident in an Austin H-E-B store on Lake Austin Boulevard, and that APD had been investigating that incident.
All five men have been charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, a state jail felony, for the incident.
