YOUNGSTOWN — Curtis Carver, 18, of Youngstown, pleaded not guilty last week in Youngstown Municipal Court to a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in the city limits and will have another hearing Oct. 29 after he told police he accidentally discharged his AR 15 firearm in Crandall Park while trying to “catch a predator.”

Police were called to the area of Tod Lane on the North Side at 6:29 p.m. Oct. 2 for a report of gunfire. Officers checked for spent bullet casings, but did not locate any.

While there, Carver called 911 and reported the reason he fired the weapon.

When officers went to Carver’s home on the North Side, Carver said he fired his AR-15 firearm accidentally. He said he hid it in a trash can in Crandall Park while he met with a man he arranged a meeting with because Carver likes to “play to catch a predator with guys trying to have sex with underage boys,” according to a Youngstown police report.

Carver said he made the male target think he was meeting up with a 15-year-old boy to have sex, but there was no 15-year-old boy. Carver said he had been talking to a boy from Trumbull County that he met on a social media site and advised the boy he was 17 years old.

The boy asked Carver if he had any brothers, and Carver lied and said he had a 15-year-old brother. Carver said the boy asked Carver to bring his brother with him. Carver said the boy asked Carver to send him a photo of his genitalia, and Carver sent an image he pulled off the internet of someone else he does not know.

Carver said he arranged the meeting with the boy and put his rifle in the trash can. When the boy arrived and made a request for sex, Carver retrieved his rifle from the garbage can and “confronted the male,” but the boy fled north through the park on Tod Lane. Carver chased the boy in an attempt to hold him for police, the report states.

The boy got into his vehicle, and Carver accidentally fired the weapon, the report states. Carver provided the license plate of the boy’s vehicle, which Youngstown police looked up, and Carver verified through a photo the identity of the boy Carver had encountered. Youngstown police took possession of Carver’s rifle and issued Carver a summons to appear in court for arraignment.

The report did not indicate whether police made any contact with the boy identified through the license plate, but there are no charges on file in Youngstown Municipal Court under his name.

“To Catch A Predator” is a reality television show featuring hidden camera investigations by the television news magazine program Dateline NBC. Its goal was impersonating underage people (generally ages 12 to 15) and detaining men who contacted them over the internet for sexual liaisons, according to the IMDb website.