Video: Bike Thief Gets Beatdown

By John Del Signore

This rather graphic video depicts an alleged bike thief getting beaten up after getting caught by the bike owner and his friends in the East Village. On the one hand, lowlife thieves deserve what's coming to them; on the other hand, street justice does have its downsides (anarchy, mob rule, model riots, etc). But the blogger who posted the video, Prolly is not Probably, is all for it, writing, "The guy wasn't bleeding or banged up. Just enough to send a message. DON'T STEAL BIKES. Cops won't do anything and this guy will think twice about stealing bikes."

He does make a valid point there. Below, posted in its entirety, is the bike owner's friend's explanation of how the bike thief was caught, assaulted, and videotaped.

Here's the story. I was having brunch on first ave and first street with a a couple of friends including Alfred .It was a pretty sunny day and a good there was a good amount of pedestrian traffic .Nothing unusual. Alfred went out to make a call and spotted someone looking over his bike. Nothing unusual ,he got a hot ass cannondale with hot ass wheels.the guy was average looking,had a helmet and a bag.looked like your average joe casual biker.Suddenly this dude gets on his knees and pulls out a drill.At first Alfred thought he wanted to steal his wheels,until he saw the drill.Is this what it has come out to?!people stealing bike with drills?Anyways as he was getting ready to drill the lock,Alfred comes in the restaurant and yells,!yooooo someones trying to steal my bike,lets go get him.and let me tell you this ass hole tried stealing the wrong bike.first it was a bike messengers bike and second it was Alfred's bike and the motherFkr got a temper sometimes.so we roll out to this dude and start pounding him.my first instinct was to get my U lock and bang on him,but my bike was already locked up so , we bumbrushed this dude and started pounding him.Everybody is watching and wondering why this dude is being plumeted ,but at that point we don't give a fuck.we had to make sure this asshole dosen't do it again.me personal i have had 2 bikes stolen,in like a month apart.fuck that shit.he did't even look like a bike thief!so while pounding him i reach out to put my phone in my pocket and realized i had a camera on my wait.i pulled it out and captured the second half of the beating!

Bike Thief vs Street Justis from triple on Vimeo.