While I'm not fond of Internet ENTRAPMENT operations, I'm also not a fan of self-proclaimed vigilantes, either. So many of these folks have criminal records or later obtain records of their own.
The police aren't much better, actually, since they spend too much time entrapping folks on the Internet rather than solving real crimes.
There are no winners in this story, only losers.
I suppose if there's a moral to this story, it is that those who bark the loudest have the most to hide. ALL vigilantes should be investigated.
https://www.westword.com/news/denver-musician-who-called-out-sexual-predators-now-a-convicted-sex-offender-17578252
Activist Musician Ross Swirling Pleads Guilty to Attempted Sexual Assault on a Minor
Benjamin Neufeld, Westworld, 9/6/2023
Ross Swirling, a political activist and onetime prominent member of the local punk music scene, has spent years using the internet to call out alleged perpetrators of sexual assault — and anyone who associates with them. But this summer, Swirling himself was convicted of attempted sexual assault on a minor, and a condition of his probation sentence had him kicked off the internet.
Swirling is the frontman for Denver-based punk band Allout Helter — which last released music in 2017 with the LP The Notion of Control; the band's social media accounts are currently offline. A 2018 Westword article outlined some of Swirling's efforts to cancel shows by artists he deemed politically problematic: He helped get an April 1, 2018, Globe Hall gig by the Norwegian band Taake shut down in protest of its anti-Muslim lyrics; later that year, he pushed for Lost Lake to cancel a show by Elite Fitrea because of the supposed similarity of the band's logo to a swastika. Other musicians and members of the local music scene also report being harassed by Swirling through the years.
On September 23, 2022, Swirling began sending messages to a person he thought was a fourteen-year-old girl named Izzy, according to a Jefferson County Sheriff's Office arrest affidavit. Izzy was actually undercover investigator Rachael Impson, who messaged back and forth with Swirling over the course of the next five days.
Earlier that day, Impson had created a profile on an internet chatroom that allows users to communicate anonymously. Her profile displayed her interests as "Denver" and "Colorado," but offered no further information. When Swirling initiated the conversation at approximately 6:16 p.m., he asked Izzy's age.
"She wrote, '14.' The user told her he was '39,'" according to the affidavit. Later that evening, Swirling messaged Izzy again: "Maybe we could link up and hang out." Izzy told him she was "down" and asked what Swirling liked to do. He replied, "Well, we'll smoke duh/Haha/We can listen to music and relax."
Over the next few days, Swirling sent several photos of himself. "Izzy commented that she liked Ross' tattoos and, he told her he has 'six.' He also wrote, 'If you ask nice, I'll show you my other tattoos,'" the affidavit states.
On September 27, "Ross asked Izzy what she was wearing that day," the affidavit continues. "She told him she was wearing layers since she does not like the cold. Ross told Izzy, 'You should just come here, I'll keep you warm (winky face emoji).' Ross further wrote Izzy would not need all her layers and he would help take them off and, 'Start rubbing my hands up and down your body to warm you up.' Ross told Izzy if she 'wiggl[ed] that butt back up against me youd feel me get hard.'"
Later that day, Swirling sent Izzy a photo and video that included "his naked penis," the affidavit notes.
On September 28, the pair made a plan to meet at the McDonald's at 7509 South Alkire Street in Littleton during Izzy's lunch break from school. "I know the age difference is, um, pretty big," Swirling wrote, "so im glad you didn't just tell me to fuck off lolol."
Instead of Izzy, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigators were waiting in the McDonald's parking lot, and they arrested Swirling at 11:06 a.m. that day. He was charged with internet luring of a child with intent to exploit, internet sexual exploitation of a child, and criminal attempt sexual assault on a child-victim under fifteen, according to Brionna Boatright, spokesperson for the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.
During the arrest, "Ross was visibly upset and made statements he was going to die and his life was over," the affidavit states. It adds that Swirling made comments about not wanting to be like his father, and the investigators later learned from a 2013 FBI press release that a man named Scott R. Swirling, Ross Swirling's possible father, had gone to prison after traveling to Washington, D.C., to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.
A JCSO investigator subsequently obtained a search warrant for Swirling's cell phone. According to the case report, Swirling had been actively communicating with one other user on the social media app that he'd used to talk with Izzy.
"The user 'Ryan' sent Ross 12 photos of young females possibly between the ages of 10 to 14 years old. The pictures were not of child sex abuse material, however, some were sexual in nature. For example, one photo showed a young female wearing a fitted shirt and underwear," states the case report. "Ross wrote the following comments: Mmmm fuck yes/ Those puffy little nipples (heart eyes emoji) [//] Omg that last girl/ Lift up that dress and pound that pussy [//] Imagine those eyes looking up at you with your cock in her mouth [//] Omg that's so hot/ The ageplay is kinky af."
In June, Swirling pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child, and the other counts were dismissed. The judge sentenced Swirling to two years of sex offender intensive supervised probation; he is now on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation sex offender registry.
Over the past two decades, Jefferson County has earned a reputation for keeping an eye out for predators online. So far this year, JCSO has arrested 33 adults in connection with internet cases, according to Sergeant Mike Harris; 46 were arrested in 2022, including Swirling.
Since 2005, JCSO has run a unit called CHEEZO, aka the Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations unit. "The CHEEZO’s intent is keeping children safe," Harris says. "We do this by portraying ourselves as underage teens in various social media apps and sites. Our intent, if an adult is using these same apps and sites to lure a child for sexual purposes, [is to] identify them and arrest them before they actually get to a real child/teen. The CHEEZO team also educates and presents to numerous schools throughout the school year."
He continues, "We have learned and know from experience, adults who have a sexual deviance for underage children go to areas on the internet/social media where children/teens go. We frequent social media apps and sites which are frequented by children/teens. So many of these sites are not policed, and adults frequent these same sites. The majority of the time when a communication begins with our teen persona and the individual learns we are eleven, twelve, fourteen or under eighteen, they immediately cease communicating with our teen persona."
But not Swirling.
Although Swirling had been arrested twice before in Colorado, those charges both involved his political activism. In 2015, he was arrested for property damage and simple assault, but both charges were later dismissed. In 2021, he was arrested again for obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest — but the charges were never tried in court.
This time, though, he was convicted. And as people in the music community learned of Swirling's guilty plea, they began sharing a screenshot of his entry in the sex offender registry, along with concerns of how he had targeted some musicians.
One of Swirling's primary targets was Teenage Bottle Rocket, a punk band from Laramie, Wyoming. Swirling's wife at the time shared allegations about a high-profile punk band from Laramie on a July 21, 2021, edition of the podcast enough, which "aims to shine light into the darkened corners of the music industry," according to its Spotify description. At the time, she identified herself by her first name and said she was the leader of the Denver Chapter of Feed the Scene, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that provides food and a place to stay for touring bands.
That October, Teenage Bottle Rocket's show at the Turf Club, a venue in St. Paul, Minnesota, was canceled because of the podcast episode, according to an article on alt-news website Racket that drew a specific connection between the allegations made on the podcast episode and Teenage Bottle Rocket. Swirling often shared links to that article.
Swirling also went after the band's booking agent, Toby Jeg of Atomic Music Group, simply because he works with Teenage Bottle Rocket, according to Jeg. Swirling contacted the agency, "trying to get AMG to drop the band and specifically attacking me," Jeg says, adding that Swirling would sometimes contact venues directly and say that a bandmember was a "rapist."
"I would not be working with or booking anybody that was involved in any sort of criminal activity like that," Jeg says. "It's completely false."
Des Garcia, a former tour manager who worked with other bands targeted by Swirling, says that his actions were "abusive," and calls the charges leveled at her bands "absolutely false."
She and Jeg say that Swirling would even go after bands that refused to publicly denounce Teenage Bottle Rocket — including bands with which Garcia worked.
"I'm a sexual assault survivor myself," Garcia says. "I'm not trying to discount that someone who is a victim is going to see this and feel attacked. I would never want to do that to someone, because I'm that person, too; I'm a survivor. I was a person that was an internet Karen once; I definitely rallied behind some shit that I'm mostly ashamed of now. ... I was that person, so I understand that most people that are jumping on this bandwagon just want to help and give a voice to people who they feel have been abused. But what these people have done is weaponize that for their own benefit."
On August 14, as news of Swirling's conviction began circulating, the main Feed the Scene Facebook page put up this post: "Based on information disclosed yesterday, the rights of FTS Denver to use our name have been terminated — effective immediately. Even though he was never part of our organization, [Swirling] resided in a home shared by an FTS location and we neither support/condone his actions nor intend to cover them up by ignoring them. We’re currently working on taking all FTS Denver information/branding down."
Swirling's former wife declined to comment, as did Teenage Bottle Rocket's representatives. Feed the Scene did not respond to a request for comment. Swirling, who wrote a piece in 2015 for Westword's music section on the return of the band Tin Horn Prayer after the death of drummer Camden Trendler, did not respond to numerous phone messages or a letter dropped off at the address on his arrest documents, asking for an interview.
A Denver woman who was once involved with Swirling and asks to remain anonymous recalls that Swirling and his then-wife were "definitely very, very active online. Very active in trying to call out pedophilia, trying to call out sexual assault allegations and things like that."
In retrospect, "I'm sure that not every one of those was true," she says. "I know there's been a lot of people that have been torn apart by both of them."
After she learned of Swirling's conviction, she adds, "I was definitely feeling pretty gross for a couple of days."
After putting up with Swirling's harassment for years, Jeg was feeling relief. "I'm just glad that, for me, he's going to get off my fucking case," he says. "I hope so."
