Meet ‘Black Biden,’ who says he’s exposed 150 pedophiles to his thousands of online followers

Kenyata, a slim but wiry 40-year-old, stands outside a 7-Eleven where he’s getting ready to confront a man traveling from Encinitas to Long Beach under the impression he is about to meet a 14-year-old girl.

As the man’s estimated arrival time gets closer, Kenyata dons an eccentric Einstein-esque wig, a red sweater and a bulletproof vest. He’s getting nervous.

“You never know what could happen,” Kenyata says. “This dude is desperate.”

Kenyata is a Long Beach father who’s gained online fame for videos where he exposes men he says are pedophiles. Under his online handle Black Biden, Kenyata has amassed millions of views from people watching him confront the men he’s lured to a fast food restaurant, convenience store or other public place under the pretense that they’re meeting a boy or girl for sex.

Kenyata, who asked to be identified in this article only by his middle name, said he doesn’t make money from these videos and he simply wants to raise awareness about the dangers children face online. His goal, he said, is to get his targets arrested, but if that doesn’t happen, he’ll settle for publicizing their behavior online.

Kenyata, who has set up more than 150 stings for his videos, doesn’t believe the current laws against meeting up with minors for sex are enough of a deterrent.

“I want to be a part of the change, and I want to make these laws that they have in place for people that harm kids to be strict,” he said.

“If I can get out there and help just one child, that’s going to make me feel good about myself, as long as I’m not breaking the law.”

Kenyata’s process for exposing alleged pedophiles is similar to that of the controversial former NBC TV show “To Catch a Predator,” where someone would pose as an underage teenager in dating apps and then invite the target to meet in person.

The show was eventually canceled after an assistant district attorney in Texas killed himself when officers arrived at his home as part of a sting arranged by the show’s crew.

Still, the show inspired a growing number of vigilante groups across the country that target alleged pedophiles and post the encounters on social media.

Their actions, however, have sparked concerns from law enforcement, who say these groups may be compromising criminal investigations.

Elizabeth Donegan, a retired Austin Police sergeant who led that city’s sex crimes unit, said the work Kenyata does can pose many risks.

“I know this guy thinks he is doing law enforcement a service,” but, she said, “Like any profession, you should leave it to the experts.”

In October 2023, a Michigan man was killed after he amassed a large following on social media for posing as a 15-year-old girl and luring alleged pedophiles into meetings where he exposed them.

Investigators at first said the man was shot during one of those confrontations, but they later backtracked, saying there was no evidence to corroborate that narrative. Nevertheless, they said, running amateur stings like this can often interfere with law enforcement’s ability to properly gather evidence.

The Long Beach Police Department shared a similar sentiment about Kenyata’s work.

A spokesperson said that while the department values partnerships with the community, they don’t condone vigilantism, which can lead to “unintended consequences such as increased acts of violence, compromising investigations, and misidentifying suspects.”

Kenyata says he understands the dangerous nature of what he does better than most, and he doesn’t consider himself an untrained vigilante.

Kenyata has long dreamed of becoming a police detective. When his dreams of becoming a sports star didn’t pan out after high school, he enrolled in college where he nurtured a passion for criminal justice.

But when his tuition was raised, he had to drop out. With a new baby on the way, he quickly found a security guard job to provide for his family. He’s stayed in that industry for the last two decades while he and his wife raise three kids.

During the pandemic, Kenyata started making videos on TikTok under the name “Theycallmesnoop,” a nod to his resemblance to Long Beach artist Snoop Dogg, he says.

He started off with comedy, wearing a fuzzy white wig and parodying Joe Biden’s speaking style as audio of the president played over the video.

The feedback he got from viewers was mostly positive, with people asking him to keep going because he was making them laugh through their pandemic isolation.

Eventually, his “Black Biden” persona was born and began amassing followers, with one TikTok video hitting nearly four million views.

His newfound hobby forced Kenyata to pay more attention to news and politics, and that’s when he says he awoke to a troubling trend: Adults using the internet to sexually abuse or extort children — a topic he saw reports on over and over.

Kenyata thought to himself, “This is a problem,” and went on YouTube where one of the first videos that popped up was somebody doing a “sting” exposing a suspected child predator.

Kenyata, thinking he might be able to produce similar videos, researched the legality of such stings. Satisfied he knew the law, he made a decoy profile on social media where he used a picture of his body with the face cropped out.

The profile description said he was underage. Nevertheless, Kenyata said, adult men quickly started reaching out to him. He responded, making sure to reiterate he was underage, but the men continued, with some even asking to meet up, according to Kenyata, who showed many similar conversations to the Long Beach Post.

During his first couple of “catches,” Kenyata said he’d go by himself to meet a man he’d been messaging.

He wouldn’t speak to them. He’d only get a picture of their license plate number, drive off and then give that information to the police.

Kenyata said he soon learned, however, that “if the cops don’t get them right then and there, they’re never going to get them.”

Now, after multiple years of serving as Long Beach’s self-proclaimed “local child protector,” Kenyata has developed a more elaborate playbook. 

To start, he’s no longer confronting anyone alone. He works with a small team of supporters — some of whom may act as the decoy in the sting — and sometimes his wife.

Kenyata says he has some strict rules: He never initiates conversations from a decoy profile, of which he has many. He waits for men to come to him.

Sometimes he’ll make a profile where it says he’s 18, but if someone messages him, he clarifies and tells them he’s actually a minor.

Some men immediately stop talking to him at this point. Others, like the man from Encinitas Kenyata was expecting outside the 7-Eleven, start turning the conversation sexual.

“His first message was if she was into older guys,” Kenyata said, referring to the female persona he’d adopted for this sting.

When Kenyata told the man he was a 14-year-old girl, the man responded by asking if she’d like to “hook up with an old daddy type?”

The man then asked to meet up, and they planned a rendezvous for 3 p.m. Wednesday in the convenience store parking lot at the corner of Third Street and Redondo Avenue.

But the man got pushy and insisted they meet sooner, according to messages reviewed by the Long Beach Post.

That is what brought Kenyata to this moment, standing in a 7-Eleven parking lot in his white-haired wig and bulletproof vest a day earlier than planned.

With 10 minutes before the man is set to arrive, it’s time to call the police.

Kenyata explains the urgency of the situation, but the operator lets him know it’s a busy night for the Long Beach Police Department. They’ll try to get an officer to the scene as soon as possible — realistically, though, it won’t be quick.

With the setup almost complete, Kenyata sends one of his team members, a small 38-year-old woman, to get into position.

Her job is to masquerade as the 14-year-old girl the man from Encinitas is expecting. Once they’re inside the 7-Eleven together, Kenyata will ask the man to have an “easy conversation” while stalling for time.

The woman, who asked not to be named for her own protection, met Kenyata through his videos. They connected and she agreed to play a decoy during Kenyata’s stings. She’s motivated by a sense of justice fueled in part by abuse in her past.

“It’s disgusting,” the woman told the Post, referring to the messages the men send her, thinking they are interacting with a minor. “I don’t think any adult should be talking like that to any minor.”

On this sting, the decoy is especially nervous. She explains she grew up in Long Beach where she was kidnapped and raped more than 20 years ago. The risk today is worth it, she says, to warn others about the dangers children face online.

“It’s easy for teens to get on social media and follow trends, and there are predators all over the place,” she explains. “I would never want my daughter to go through anything I went through.”

Back in character, the decoy calls the man from Encinitas and tells him she’s sneaking out of her house right now. Her grandma had just fallen asleep.

Minutes later, the alleged pedophile texts that he’s parked near the 7-Eleven. She responds, saying she wants a snack and he should meet her inside the store.

A large man, who looks about 45 to 50 years old, gets out of a dark sedan and limps into the 7-Eleven, where he starts flirting with the decoy.

Worried about keeping his partner safe, Kenyata sprints from across the street, but then gathers himself and walks calmly into the 7-Eleven with his camera. His wife and security guard follow closely behind.

His wig quickly catches the target’s attention, and Kenyata banters with him before his tone becomes gravely serious.

“I need to talk to you,” Kenyata tells the man, who — after a moment of confusion — seems to quickly catch on.

“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says before rushing toward his car.

As the man explains he thought he was meeting an 18-year-old, Kenyata tries to do anything to slow him down.

“I just want to talk to you, bro,” Kenyata says, his tone becoming increasingly urgent.

Kenyata screams at the man as he begins to back his car out of a parking spot: “Stop meeting minors for sex!”

But the outburst distracts him for only a moment, and the man speeds away, driving over a sidewalk and curb to escape.

The cops never arrive.

“It pisses me off because this guy was a real creep,” Kenyata says. “Now he’s got more than enough chance to go out there and do it again.”

“And this time, he may succeed at it.”

Not every sting ends with someone getting arrested, Kenyata said. So his next step is to edit his footage from the 7-Eleven and show it to his 145,000 followers on TikTok and another 900 or so on Rumble, the YouTube competitor known for looser moderation.

Since he started posting videos of his stings, Kenyata’s popular Instagram and YouTube have both been taken offline, but he’s still determined to publicize footage of men he believes are predators, like this one.

That way, Kenyata says, “anyone that knows him knows what he’s doing.”