0:00

It's time to tell our side of the story. But

0:02

we need your help. Please share, like,

0:04

and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're

0:06

listening to it, and please don't forget

0:08

to give us a five star rating. It helps

0:10

us beat the big tech algorithm. Also, if you

0:12

love Red Pilled America, please consider becoming

0:15

a backstage subscriber for as little

0:17

as five dollars a month. You'll have access to our

0:19

entire back catalog of episodes and

0:21

are behind the scenes podcast. Just

0:23

visit Redpilled America dot com and click support

0:26

in the topmenu. That's Redpilled America dot

0:28

com and click support in the top menu. Support

0:30

what you love or it goes away.

0:32

We originally broadcast this episode

0:34

on September twentieth, twenty nineteen,

0:37

and we have a new update at the end. Enjoy

0:39

Vigilante Justice. I

0:43

think we can all agree that the right is pro law

0:45

enforcement, but

0:48

a new movement has slowly been spreading

0:50

across the nation, a trend to try and

0:52

lower our prison populations by raising

0:54

our felony threshold, and some cities

0:56

are feeling the unintended consequences.

0:59

Crimes are on the lad in California and researchers

1:01

think they know why.

1:02

Proposition forty seven is that voter

1:05

approved initiative that downgraded some

1:07

crimes in order to free up more prison

1:09

space.

1:10

Our social media feeds are filled with videos

1:12

of people committing petty crimes.

1:15

With law enforcement often overwhelmed

1:17

in big cities. A question is arising

1:19

even among supporters of our men in Blue,

1:21

and that is when is it okay to take the

1:23

law into your own hands. I'm

1:29

Patrick CARELCI.

1:30

And I'm Adriana Cortes, and.

1:32

This is Red Pilled America, a storytelling

1:35

show.

1:36

This is not another talk show covering the day's

1:38

news. We're all about telling stories.

1:41

Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.

1:44

The media mocks stories

1:46

about everyday Americans at the globalist

1:49

ignore.

1:50

You can think of Red Pilled America as audio

1:52

documentaries, and we promise only one thing,

1:57

the truth. Welcome

2:02

to Red Pilled America. Many

2:12

on the political right place their complete

2:14

trusts in our law enforcement. Trump

2:16

voters in particular, praise them at every

2:18

opportunity. But there's a new trend

2:20

that's tying the hands of our men in Blue, and

2:23

it's beginning to erode confidence in

2:25

our government's ability to make good on the

2:27

order part of law and order. Progressive

2:29

groups and even some on the right are pushing

2:32

to reduce prison populations in a

2:34

way that has some unintended consequences.

2:37

Organizations like the SPLC has

2:39

been pushing for local government to raise

2:41

the felony threshold, and some

2:43

cities are seeing a rise in property crime

2:45

as a result. With law enforcement's

2:47

hands full fighting more serious crimes,

2:50

citizens and small business owners may

2:52

begin to wonder when is it okay

2:54

to take the law into your own hands.

2:57

To find the answer, we follow the story

2:59

of a mini nepless man's quest to get

3:01

law enforcement to help him nab

3:03

a thief and how they're inaction made

3:06

him seek out vigilante justice.

3:13

Robin Hour doesn't sound like the kind

3:16

of guy that would become a vigilante.

3:18

A numbers man with a master's degree from

3:20

a rural town, a graduate with honors

3:23

that went on to become a banker, But after

3:25

a series of frustrating exchanges with local

3:27

law enforcement, Robin would add

3:29

vigilante to his resume as well. He

3:33

grew up in a small farming town called Hutchinson,

3:35

Minnesota.

3:36

It's about seventy miles straight west

3:39

of Minneapolis. Saint Paul metro area.

3:41

That's Robin. The town's population

3:43

is now roughly fourteen thousand, and it

3:45

hasn't grown much since his sister, mom, dad,

3:47

and him called it home. His

3:50

mother was a school teacher for forty years and

3:52

his father was a lifetime state bureaucrat

3:54

who hypercommuted the eighty five miles

3:57

to work in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

4:00

Was pretty much that you know, Maybury

4:03

existence type of thing where me

4:06

and my buddies would get up in the daytime and

4:08

cracked it, you know, as soon as the sun came up,

4:10

we had breakfast. We were on our bikes and out

4:13

all day and came back for lunch

4:15

and out till it got dark

4:17

and home for dinner type of thing.

4:18

He attended public school, and as a kid,

4:21

Robin had a thing for Ronald Reagan, going

4:23

as far as sending the president a letter.

4:25

Invited him to my birthday party as like a five

4:27

year old or something like that, and crazy enough,

4:30

you know, two years after that he actually

4:32

sent a reply to me.

4:36

In grade school, Robin was a bit of a troublemaker,

4:39

but nothing major. He graduated high

4:41

school with honors and followed his future

4:43

wife to Minnesota. State University Mankato.

4:47

He started off studying finance, but later

4:49

switched to economics, and.

4:50

I just didn't care for the finance guys,

4:53

kind of you know, the preppy dorks

4:55

that I once wasn't in high

4:57

school, but at the time just

5:00

kind of rebelled against that. Plus I like the critical thinking

5:02

aspect and the math aspect of

5:04

economic.

5:05

In their spare time, him and his then girlfriend

5:08

became live music junkies.

5:10

We traveled the country seeing music, and

5:13

I think I've seen over three thousand concerts

5:16

in my life.

5:17

The two were a bit of an odd couple. Robin

5:19

carried his fondness for Reagan's politics into

5:21

his twenties, while his girlfriend was,

5:23

in his words, super liberal and

5:26

had the hairstyle to prove.

5:27

It, dreadhead and that

5:29

whole bit. And I myself had long hair

5:31

down to my waistline.

5:33

He graduated from college with honors in two thousand

5:35

and six and took a job as a research

5:37

analyst at the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

5:41

But Robin came to the decision that he wanted

5:43

to pursue a career in alternative energy,

5:45

so he entered the master's program at the Colorado

5:48

School of Mines, a university

5:50

devoted to engineering and applied science,

5:53

where he studied mineral economics. But

5:55

when he finished the program in May two thousand

5:57

and nine, the country was in the height of the finalinancial

6:00

crisis, making jobs even

6:02

in technical industries hard to come

6:04

by.

6:05

So my dreams of becoming

6:08

an alternative energy analysts were kind

6:10

of dashed there, because it was a chicken in an egg situation.

6:13

Do you have someone in the

6:15

industry that you know, or do you have a lot of experience.

6:18

I had neither.

6:22

Like many during the Great Recession, Robin

6:24

was forced to find work where he could, so

6:27

he turned to retail banking.

6:29

They hired me on as a bank teller. So

6:32

here I am with a master's degree

6:35

in in advanced

6:37

economics, essentially with

6:40

six figures worth of debt, and

6:42

I'm starting at like ten bucks

6:44

an hour as a bank teller, not even in a main

6:47

branch, mind you, in a disconnected

6:50

motor bank branch.

6:51

But he rolled up his sleeves and within six

6:54

months he got a banker position, and

6:56

within a year Robin was elevated

6:58

to a licensed banker adulthood,

7:01

began settling in and in twenty eleven

7:03

on their ten year dating anniversary to the day

7:06

Robin and his girlfriend got married. The

7:09

two moved back to Minnesota the following year,

7:11

and Robin began a new corporate job at

7:13

a retail bank.

7:15

Yeah, like I said, bought a house. But you

7:17

know, things were leading to the next I knew

7:19

the next step with kids, and yeah,

7:22

it just got to a point where we really couldn't talk anymore

7:24

about anything because it always swung

7:27

back to politics and me disagreeing

7:29

with her, and you

7:32

know, my opinions

7:35

were seen by her as offensive

7:38

to or demeaning to her opinion,

7:40

as though I wasn't not only just disagreeing,

7:43

but I thought I was somehow making

7:46

this huge slight against her ideology.

7:49

And it just clicked on me. I was like, not

7:51

only is this not going to work out between us,

7:53

but this is exactly what the left

7:55

is like

7:59

their ideaology, their political ideology

8:02

is now their religion. And it was

8:04

a total eye opening moment.

8:05

Luckily, when Robin came to this realization,

8:08

there were no kids in the picture.

8:10

We only had a house and a dog. Really, so

8:12

it was an amical breakup from you know,

8:14

financial standpoint, who basically

8:17

just went our separate ways kind of odd

8:19

thing. You know, you spend end up spending

8:21

thirteen odd years with someone and you can divorce

8:23

in the like twenty eight days. I think it was.

8:26

So Robin was basically starting over, but

8:28

this time loaded up with a bit of a financial

8:30

anchor.

8:34

You know. It was kind of, you know, kind of crazy. We went from this

8:36

house in the suburbs, the you know, kind of picturesque

8:39

little life too. Ultimately moved

8:41

in with my sister for a year, moved

8:43

in with a couple of college buddies for a year, paid

8:45

off some of the debt that I inherited

8:48

from you know, the relationship

8:51

and the wedding and all that, and then

8:53

I moved downtown here two years ago, in

8:55

May of twenty seventeen.

8:57

Moving to downtown Minneapolis sparked a question

8:59

for a few years earlier,

9:02

Just two days after moving in with his sister, Robin

9:04

got into a car accident on his way to work.

9:07

Not having a lot of savings after the divorce, he

9:09

decided to lease a car.

9:11

You know, so I got I leased a new car,

9:14

and I after I started doing the math, I

9:16

was like, you know what with the rent or

9:18

the downtown rental parking

9:20

spot, the insurance, the

9:23

car payment, all of the gas, the maintenance, everything.

9:25

It was like as much as a cheap apartment

9:27

down here, seven eight hundred bucks a month. So

9:30

after the lease was up, I did.

9:32

I moved downtown, got myself a cheap

9:34

apartment and started

9:36

this downtown experiment.

9:43

And I figured, hey, you know what, I'm going to be working

9:45

within ten blocks

9:47

of my work. I'm gonna get rid of my

9:49

car. I'm gonna, you know, just give it

9:51

a shot. Really, I'm gonna buy a nice bike bike

9:54

to work every day.

9:55

All of his friends lived in and around downtown,

9:58

so they were just a twenty to thirty minute by right

10:00

away. His sister was also

10:02

closer, so he decided to hell with

10:04

a car payment.

10:05

So, yeah, I bought this nice

10:08

bike as a gift

10:10

to myself, and you know, kind of tricked

10:12

it out. I guess I got

10:14

it from a local. They

10:17

call it a co op. I guess it's called

10:19

the Hub bike co Op.

10:21

Even with its below zero winter temperatures,

10:24

Minneapolis surprisingly has one of the biggest bicycling

10:26

cultures in America. It consistently

10:29

makes bicycling magazines Top five

10:31

bike friendly cities, and in twenty

10:33

ten The magazine even ranked it as

10:35

the number one bike friendly town in America,

10:38

enraging the blue haired male feminist

10:40

cyclist of Portland.

10:42

There's definitely a huge bike culture here.

10:45

Some Minneapolis runs along

10:47

the Mississippi River. It was built up there in the

10:49

eighteen hundreds. It's not uncommon on

10:51

the trail on Saturday morning to see

10:54

twenty thirty deep of

10:56

all of these guys decked out in

10:58

their full on racing year padded

11:00

shorts, and they're twenty

11:03

eight one hundred five thousand

11:05

dollars racing bikes, all in

11:07

a pack. And it's, to be honest

11:09

with you, it's just it's obnoxious.

11:12

I mean, we have dedicated bike lanes

11:15

downtown on pretty much every street.

11:17

Minneapolis is also super flat, the

11:20

perfect terrain for bicycling. It's

11:22

also, along with fellow bike friendly cities

11:24

Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, New York

11:26

City and others, a politically liberal

11:28

city where biking is more than just

11:31

a mode of transportation. It's a

11:33

fashion statement.

11:34

Yeah, there is a little bit of a haughtiness

11:36

about it. I

11:39

mean, just this morning, I

11:43

was riding next to one of these

11:45

guys on like those three wheel tricycle recumbent

11:47

style things. And when we came up

11:50

to a light, I just kind of leaned back and I

11:52

asked him, I'm like, say, how much does a bike like

11:54

that go for? I'm thinking of grabbing my dad

11:56

one for his birthday. He's like, well, this one's

11:58

four thousand, but you can get

12:00

one for like eighteen hundred of them. Well,

12:03

maybe I'll think of a different option. But anyway,

12:06

as haughty as they are about

12:09

their uber expensive bikes and all

12:11

of their equipment and helmet usage,

12:13

and you know, just the culture

12:15

in it of itself, they

12:18

are I will say, very

12:21

very loyal to one another's. There's a certain camaraderie

12:24

that exists amongst them.

12:26

Robin hadn't had a bike in over a decade,

12:28

so he began doing some research and in

12:30

August twenty seventeen, he decided

12:33

to buy a Jamus Renegade Exile bike

12:35

from the Hub Bike co Op with

12:38

some aftermarket parts vendors, reflectors,

12:40

pedals. He was in about sixteen hundred

12:42

dollars. For roughly a

12:44

year and a half, the bike was his primary

12:47

source of transportation without a hitch.

12:50

I'd normally keep it inside and it

12:52

is inside overnight. You

12:55

know more often than it isn't.

12:57

You know. Typically every night I keep it inside,

13:03

but this one night, I just fell asleep on the couch

13:06

for whatever reason, didn't grab it. Went out the next

13:08

morning and I saw it. It

13:10

was still connected to the street

13:12

sign, but it was lying on the ground the

13:15

hell so, you know, I looked at

13:17

it, and the lock did its job, but

13:20

there was a big a dent

13:22

in the main frame of it, right, So now

13:25

I'm thinking, well, great, the structural

13:27

integrity might be compromised. So

13:30

I took it in and ultimately

13:32

we tested it, you know, some ping tests

13:34

and stuff like that, and they were convinced

13:36

and I was. My fears were assuage that it

13:38

was still legit and worth riding.

13:41

So yeah, the bike had the attempted

13:44

theft, and while it didn't,

13:46

you know, go as planned for the thief, I'm

13:48

convinced it messed

13:51

up the lock itself because

13:56

the key thereafter to

13:58

open it became increasingly

14:00

more and more sticky and problematic

14:03

to open. And flash

14:06

forward to this year. I got done

14:08

with work one day and the key just wouldn't open.

14:10

It was stuck, right, So I tried everything,

14:13

couldn't get it open. It ultimately had

14:15

to have a locksmith come and cut the

14:17

U lock off my bike so I could get it home. And

14:19

I was just using my backup cable lock

14:22

at the time until I could buy a new one.

14:24

With the much less protective cable lock now

14:26

in the mix. Robin was playing a game

14:28

of Russian Roulette with his sixteen hundred dollars

14:31

chariot, but he decided he'd

14:33

get through the week with his backup

14:35

and buy a new one, a much sturdier

14:37

U shaped barlock, the coming weekend.

14:41

But little did he know that that simple

14:43

decision would be the first domino to

14:45

drop on his road to becoming a vigilante.

14:51

Life can be pretty stressful these days.

14:54

You want to know what makes me feel better?

14:56

Licorice from the licorice Guy. Me

15:00

crazy, but it's true because I love

15:02

licorice. Longtime listeners of bread Pilled

15:04

America know that licorice is my absolute

15:07

favorite candy, and the very best licorice,

15:09

hands down, comes from the licorice Guy.

15:11

I know licorice, and it doesn't get any

15:13

better than this. What truly sets it apart

15:16

is its flavor and its freshness. The softness

15:18

of this licorice will blow your mind. I've

15:20

never had anything like it. The Licorice Guy

15:23

offers jumbo gourmet licorice and nostalgic

15:25

seasonal flavors a red, blue, raspberry,

15:28

cinnamon, watermelon, black, and apple.

15:30

Trust me, they are all delicious. What I also

15:33

love about The Liquorice Guy is that it's an American

15:35

family owned business, and you all know that I'm

15:37

a big proponent of supporting American companies.

15:40

Right now, Red Pilled America listeners get fifteen

15:42

percent off when you enter RPA

15:44

fifteen at checkout. Visit Licoriceguy

15:47

dot com and enter RPA fifteen

15:49

at checkout. That's Licoriceguy dot

15:51

com. They ship daily, treat yourself

15:54

and those you love, and taste the difference.

15:59

Welcome back. I'm Adriana Cortes.

16:02

So Robin's bike survived a theft attempt,

16:04

but in the process, the lock on his sturdy U

16:07

shaped barlock became sticky and

16:09

gradually began to malfunction until it

16:11

no longer worked. The locksmith

16:13

had to cut it off, and Robin decided to

16:15

use his spare cable lock until

16:18

the following weekend. Would he'd be able to buy

16:20

a new barlock. But little did

16:22

he know that this simple decision would

16:24

be the first domino to drop on his

16:26

road to becoming a vigilante.

16:31

When he got off work that Monday in mid July, Robin

16:34

rode his bike home and like every other day,

16:36

pedaled up to the parking meter kiosk outside

16:39

his place.

16:41

And so I was locked up to that and

16:43

I get home at about five point fifteen

16:46

or whatever, So I locked it up, went

16:48

upstairs to make supper and

16:51

listened to some news, and yeah,

16:53

I loaded up my bag to make

16:55

my nightly trip to the gym, and

16:58

went outside probably about ten o'clock, and

17:01

I looked and it was gone. And

17:03

I was like, wait, did I park it somewhere else? I looked

17:05

up and down the street and it

17:07

was gone, sure enough. And I looked where it was and there

17:10

was the cable lock on the ground cut

17:13

in half.

17:13

There are a lot of people who have experienced

17:16

their bike being stolen. If

17:18

it happens to you as a kid, it's likely your first

17:20

taste of the real world. Something you

17:22

loved that is probably your first really expensive

17:24

possession has been snatched by

17:26

someone within your community. Getting your

17:28

bike stolen as a child is really a coming of

17:31

age moment where you first realize that there are

17:33

people out there looking to take what you have,

17:39

but as an adult, the theft can have

17:41

more practical consequences. This

17:44

was what Robin experienced.

17:46

Man I did the old man fist shake and

17:48

curse to the sky type of thing. You know,

17:51

it's anger, of course, because you

17:53

never want to have anything

17:56

taken from you that you know shouldn't

17:58

be. You're actually kind of angered

18:00

at your upset with yourself a little bit too, because

18:02

you know better in a way, especially

18:05

knowing what I know about the city, just you

18:07

know the crime that exists around here. And plus

18:09

I'd had different accessories like lights stolen

18:11

off my bike before in the past since moving here.

18:14

But then it, you know, it was kind of this you know, despair,

18:17

like, well, now I'm going to walk to work type thing,

18:19

and it's just gonna be super inconvenient. How am I gonna get

18:22

groceries all that stuff? But

18:24

yeah, the victimization feeling,

18:27

you know, you just feel that you know

18:29

something of yours was taken that shouldn't have been,

18:31

and it just makes you feel

18:34

bad not only about the situation

18:36

you're immediately in, but just also

18:38

about your community. You know, your city

18:41

that you know, people like this live

18:44

in the same spot that you yourself

18:46

have chosen willingly to move to

18:48

and live amongst. You know, whether

18:51

this person was my neighbor or not, or whether

18:53

he lived in some other portion of the

18:55

city, it's still you know, he's

18:57

part of this community. Yeah,

19:00

it doesn't. He doesn't give you good any good feelings.

19:03

I'll tell you that.

19:04

After he gathered himself, Robin did

19:06

what you're supposed to do in these situations.

19:09

He contacted law enforcement.

19:11

So, yeah, I called

19:14

the Minneapolis PD, called nine one

19:16

one, got a patrolman to

19:18

come out I'd say maybe thirty minutes later, which

19:20

was surprising that he was there that quick.

19:22

He gave the cop the time range that it was stolen,

19:25

somewhere between five point fifteen PM

19:27

and ten pm. Every

19:30

bike comes with a serial number, but like most

19:32

people, Robin hadn't recorded

19:34

his, so he filed the police report without

19:36

it.

19:37

The guy, the patrolman,

19:40

who I knew, was just going to take the report

19:42

and then you know, put it over to the stolen

19:44

property group. I

19:47

didn't really get much of an explanation as

19:49

to what's going to happen. I

19:51

asked him flat I was like, what's the likelihood

19:53

of this getting returned? He says it's not likely.

19:56

I don't I don't know if he said I'd

19:58

be shocked if you get it back, but that that's kind of

20:00

how it was presented

20:02

to me in a way.

20:03

In two thousand and seven, Minnesota

20:06

was one of the earliest states to substantially raise

20:08

its felony threshold, doubling

20:10

it from five hundred to one thousand

20:12

dollars. Because Robin put about

20:14

sixteen hundred dollars into the bike, even

20:17

with its devaluation over the course of two

20:19

years, it was likely right at the threshold

20:22

for a felony in Minneapolis, but

20:24

Robin still didn't feel confident that the

20:26

police department would be much help, so

20:29

he began his own citizen investigation.

20:35

It just so happened that right across

20:37

the street from his place was the Hennepin

20:39

County Medical Center, and the facility,

20:42

just a year earlier had some upgrades.

20:46

This particular side of the building has a

20:49

flood an entire bank of cameras,

20:51

and I was like, you know what, that camera

20:54

right there looks like it's pointed directly

20:56

at where my bike is parked. Sure

20:58

enough, it was so.

21:00

He asked the hospital for help. The

21:02

security guard on nightwatch told him

21:04

to contact the head of security that would be on site

21:06

in the am.

21:07

And so I did. Following morning, reached

21:10

out, let her know what was going on and

21:12

just requested if she could find video, gave

21:15

her all the details, what cross streets it was

21:17

between, you know, rough time of.

21:19

Day, and within a few hours,

21:21

sure enough she found the moment

21:23

of the bike heist.

21:25

She confirmed back that she

21:27

had not only still images of the

21:29

thief, but you

21:31

know, the actual video

21:34

footage of him stealing it, and

21:37

gave me a pinpointed time. Five

21:39

forty seven pm is when it was stolen.

21:41

The thief was brazen. He snatched

21:44

the bike in broad daylight about

21:46

thirty minutes after Robin got home, and

21:49

it was all caught on camera. The

21:52

problem was that the hospital couldn't give Robin

21:54

the footage of the theft.

21:56

The hospital wasn't able to disclose

21:58

it to me directly, and

22:00

so I asked

22:03

her, so, how do we go about getting

22:05

this footage into the police's hands. Can

22:07

you send it specifically

22:09

to someone at MPD or

22:12

do they have to request it? Can I

22:14

take it in like a

22:17

you know, a downloaded form and transport

22:19

it from you to them type of thing.

22:21

And you know, she basically said, well, they

22:23

have to request it from us, and

22:26

she's like, don't worry, they do it all the time for other types

22:28

of crimes. I'm like, yeah, I'll you know, I'll

22:30

believe it when I see it, which is particular to one.

22:39

Robin contacted the Minneapolis Police

22:41

Department and let them know about the video. Again,

22:44

the MPD took the information, but

22:46

Robin didn't get the feelings they were going to move

22:48

on it, so he pressed on with

22:51

his investigation. Now,

22:53

each bike has a unique serial

22:55

number on the frame, kind of like your

22:57

car's been number. Knowing that the

23:00

turg was caught on video, Robin

23:02

needed to go back to the police department with his bike's

23:04

actual serial number, so that if the police

23:06

put in the work and found the thief,

23:08

they could confirm that the bike in his possession

23:11

was in fact Robin's.

23:12

I called up the hub the

23:14

Bike co Op and had to get

23:16

my serial numbers so I could amend

23:19

my police report. And

23:21

it was in the course of talking

23:24

with them, I asked, you know, what do you guys recommend

23:26

doing in a situation like that? Do you have any tips,

23:28

anything that I can do to be proactive because

23:31

I didn't really have high hopes from

23:34

MPD, knowing what I know about

23:36

their short staffing and stuff like that.

23:41

They basically said, well, good luck,

23:43

man, but don't expect MPD to do anything.

23:45

That's just not going to

23:48

happen. But what you can

23:50

do is join this Facebook group

23:52

called Twin Cities Stolen Bikes.

23:55

I was like, there's a Facebook group

23:57

for stolen bikes. That was news

23:59

to me.

24:02

You'd think the social media group would have

24:05

maybe a few dozen or possibly

24:07

a few hundred members, but you'd

24:09

be wildly off in that estimation. The

24:12

Facebook page of Twin City Stolen Bikes

24:14

now has over eight thousand,

24:17

three hundred members, and it's a

24:19

vigilante group with one primary purpose

24:21

reconnecting bike owners with their stolen bikes.

24:25

Bike theft is a real problem nationwide

24:27

because it hits that sweet spot of being

24:29

a big enough financial grab to make it worth

24:31

the thieves while but not big

24:34

enough to spark the interest of law enforcement.

24:36

It's also unique in that the stolen property

24:38

acts as the getaway vehicle. A

24:41

July twenty nineteen study published

24:43

by Project five twenty nine a

24:45

bike registry organization, found

24:47

that over two million bikes are stolen

24:49

each year in North America, meaning one

24:52

is stolen every thirty seconds, making

24:54

it a billion dollar problem. Over

24:57

the last two decades, bike thefts have doubled,

25:00

and one analysis by The Oregonian in

25:02

Portland found that only two percent of reported

25:05

bike thefts in their city resulted in

25:07

arrests. Many cities with

25:09

flourishing bicycle cultures have bike recovery

25:11

Facebook groups, but at most they

25:13

number in the hundreds of members. Twin

25:16

cities, stolen Bikes membership far exceeds

25:19

any other town, giving an indication

25:21

of the extent of the problem. In Minneapolis, law

25:23

enforcement is obviously not

25:26

curbing the crime problem, and that's

25:28

the dynamic that typically gives rise to vigilante

25:30

groups.

25:33

So there's a huge array

25:35

of these groups and it's so

25:38

interesting where they come up.

25:39

That's Sarah M. Robinson, co author

25:41

of the book Shadow Vigilantes,

25:43

how distrust in the justice system breeds

25:46

a new kind of lawlessness.

25:48

And for instance, San Francisco used

25:50

to be unfriendly towards

25:54

their gay community, and

25:57

so of the gay community

26:00

formed the Lavender Panthers right

26:02

there with the Black panthers and

26:05

they took on the gay bashers. The

26:07

police wouldn't, so they did.

26:10

They got the grapemobile, they

26:12

got I don't know, like a VW

26:15

van. They painted at lavender and

26:17

if somebody was in trouble, they'd get a call

26:19

and these guys would leap out with their

26:21

pool sticks and start whacking back,

26:24

and suddenly the police were willing to

26:26

address it. You know, if somebody

26:28

comes to a bar and starts hassling

26:31

some gay community member, they

26:34

whip out their pool sticks and they lay into them.

26:36

Well, suddenly the police are motivated.

26:40

Or during the Civil Rights

26:42

era, there was a group called the Deacons

26:44

of Defense and Justice

26:47

and they were vets who were back

26:49

in the Delta and they

26:51

weren't going to tolerate the

26:53

the klu Klux Klan and the

26:56

authorities siding with them, so they

26:58

stood up. These were American

27:01

veterans who were armed, they

27:03

knew how to use their weapons and they just

27:05

said no, and what do you know, it

27:07

worked. So there is a lot of vigilanteism,

27:11

and it's hard to say that these people are necessarily

27:13

wrong to do whatever it is they're doing.

27:16

When law and order isn't fulfilling its obligation

27:18

to the public. Large vigilante groups

27:20

like Twin Cities Stolen Bikes organically

27:22

form again, Sarah M. Robinson,

27:25

think about all the vigilante movies.

27:27

People care about justice.

27:30

So are they getting their eight

27:32

thousand people just because people care

27:35

about stolen bikes or are they getting

27:37

their eight thousand people because people care

27:39

about justice and this is a way

27:41

that they can participate in justice.

27:44

And I'm not saying which is which, but

27:46

it seems eight thousand is a very

27:48

big number if we're just responding

27:51

to stolen bikes. But if

27:53

what we're responding to is this idea

27:56

that I can do something about justice,

27:59

well, those start to make a lot more

28:01

sense to me.

28:02

The eight thousand plus membership is what also

28:04

caught Robin's eye.

28:05

And that's what piqued my interest into

28:08

thinking that this is a larger problem

28:10

than I had even realized.

28:13

So I did. I linked up

28:15

to the group, spoke

28:17

with an administrator, went through the whole process

28:19

of getting enrolled or

28:22

become a member or whatever. I posted

28:24

my bike with the image

28:26

that I had posted all the particulars

28:29

and reached

28:32

out to various people and just asked him for tips

28:35

and my friends and family

28:37

and so forth.

28:38

The feedback that he got was that he needed to start

28:40

monitoring all the resale apps and websites

28:42

because the thief was going to likely try and

28:44

sell the stolen merchandise in the very

28:47

near future.

28:48

And so I downloaded a bunch of resale

28:50

apps and started

28:53

checking out Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace,

28:56

and I just became part

28:58

of my job basically, did you

29:01

know, did that two three times a day, morning,

29:03

lunch, break, in the evening, just

29:07

page through and I had some free time.

29:11

At the close of Tuesday, though he found

29:13

nothing. He searched again on Wednesday,

29:16

still nothing. Then Thursday

29:18

and Friday came and went. No

29:20

sign of his bike. Robin was getting

29:22

discouraged, and on top of that, he

29:25

had no transportation. He was forced

29:27

to walk the roughly twenty blocks to work

29:29

him back, no doubt, his anger and frustration

29:32

building all along the way.

29:33

And at this point, I'm thinking, you know, this

29:36

is not happening. You know, I was just

29:38

kind of getting dejected about it. I

29:40

debated, you know, biting the bullet and

29:42

buying a new bike and putting down more money

29:44

and whatnot. But I just figured, you know, I'm gonna

29:46

give it at least a week. It's not meant to be.

29:48

After a week, then I'll start really thinking about it.

29:51

So I had I had

29:53

done my like mid afternoon

29:55

scrolling for the day on Saturday, and I was just

29:57

hanging about watching TV. I don't even know what I was

29:59

doing really, when I get a DM

30:02

from one of the administrators in the group.

30:04

The administrators of the Twin City Stolen Bike

30:06

group are the Internet nerds, and I

30:08

mean that affectionately, glued to the reselling

30:11

apps.

30:12

Saying Hey, I see your bikes for sale

30:14

on Facebook Marketplace. I'm I'm

30:16

going to establish a buy and you

30:18

know, get the ball rolling on that. And immediately

30:22

my heart starts pounding. I'm like, you

30:24

know, kind of like that nervous energy you've got

30:26

a big job interview, you're about to take

30:28

a girl out on a first date type thing. I was just like,

30:30

you've got to be kidd by, you know, kind of get

30:32

all jittery, like it had too

30:34

much caffeine.

30:36

So Robin logs into Facebook Marketplace

30:38

to check out the bike listing that the nerd

30:40

sent him, and sure enough it

30:42

was his bike.

30:43

That's it. I mean, yeah, there's some

30:45

parts stripped off of it, but that is it,

30:48

I mean, because the nice thing about my bike

30:50

is that it is customized. I mean it has blue

30:52

bike cables, it has blue handlebar wrap, it

30:54

has a white white pedals, you know, so it's

30:57

very distinct from the

31:00

model that I could have just had.

31:10

Robin had a mix of emotions. He

31:12

was elated that he'd found his bike, but

31:14

he was enraged at the same time. Here

31:17

is the guy trying to sell his bike, the one

31:19

he'd put a whopping sixteen hundred

31:21

dollars into. The heist was

31:23

caught on tape, Yet the Minneapolis

31:26

Police Department was not helping. The

31:28

injustice of it all ate away at Robin

31:31

and a vigilante was born.

31:33

It was like, I'm going to beat

31:35

the mother. And

31:38

I am so happy that it's not

31:40

been sold yet, that it's still posted online,

31:43

that I can still see it out there, that

31:45

it's not gone yet,

31:47

because once it's gone, I mean it it's gone.

31:50

So Robin found it. Now

31:52

all he had to do was try to schedule

31:54

a bye with the thief. But this

31:57

is where things got a little tricky. Trying

31:59

to contact the seller. Be a Facebook

32:01

means that your real identity would likely be given

32:03

over to a person that has committed a felony.

32:06

He got an itchy finger and reached out to the guy

32:08

using his real Facebook identity. But

32:11

then Robin got wise and shifted tactics.

32:14

So I see the ad and I

32:16

reach out to my close core

32:19

buddies and my family, sister,

32:21

brother in law, and we

32:23

all. I was like, okay, so this is what we're going to do. Everybody

32:26

established like a fictitious profile

32:29

if you can, if you're willing to do it, and you don't

32:31

want to use your own, the nice thing

32:34

is the TCSB. That's what I'm

32:36

going to refer to him as the bike

32:38

club. They had a bunch of fictitious

32:40

profiles created, so I logged

32:43

in as that person and

32:45

started to try and make a buy of my own, as well

32:47

as my other buddies, many of whom live out

32:49

state, so they didn't care if they had a fictitious

32:52

profile or not. They just used their own. So

32:56

we all tried to establish

32:58

a buy like, hey, is this fruit still for sale?

33:00

How much you're offering? You know, can

33:03

I do a test drive type of questions

33:05

stuff like that. So we

33:07

all started that process and I

33:09

called MPD again.

33:12

Now by now, I probably called them

33:14

three four times throughout the week, just you

33:16

know, give him a couple of updates of what

33:19

I knew, stuff like that about the

33:21

video, like hey, there's video footage, still

33:23

frame, blah blah blah. And I've

33:26

got some friends on the force here, so

33:28

I was reaching out to them as well, and

33:30

they're like, oh, man, you're kidding. You got this info.

33:32

That's great, y'all reach out to the

33:35

lieutenant or whatever in the property

33:37

crimes group. But

33:39

nobody ever got back to me. Nobody

33:41

ever called me back.

33:43

Now, remember Robin hadn't been given

33:45

access to the video of the heightst captured by the hospital,

33:48

so he couldn't be sure if the guy selling

33:50

his bike was the same guy that stole it. The

33:52

seller looked in his mid twenties, white

33:54

guy, tallish, maybe six foot one,

33:57

broad shoulders. He had the frame of

33:59

a big dude, like he was withering

34:01

away. So

34:05

he began to dig deeper into the cellar

34:07

to see what he could find.

34:09

So I've got some technologist

34:12

buddies as well, and they

34:14

started nerding out on this

34:16

guy who was selling it on Facebook,

34:20

and they started looking him up in Criminal

34:22

databases and lo

34:24

and behold, this guy who was selling

34:27

it was using his actual

34:29

real name. And how do we know that

34:32

because we found him

34:34

on probation in Hennepin County

34:36

for theft, and we matched

34:39

up the photos, same name, same

34:42

face, dead match.

34:43

Posting a stolen bike under a real name

34:46

is so easily trackable. This

34:48

gives a good indication of Howifreid, Minneapolis

34:51

bike these are of local law enforcement. Translation,

34:54

they have zero fear. So

34:58

Robin took it upon himself to apply

35:00

some pressure. His tech friends

35:02

helped him track down the thief's probation officer.

35:05

Robin tried calling, but it was the weekend, so no

35:07

one picked up. He left a voicemail,

35:10

then emailed the thief's Facebook profile

35:12

to the probation officer along with the stolen

35:14

bike, listing this thief stole

35:16

from the wrong guy.

35:18

Finally, late Saturday

35:20

afternoon, the seller responded, but

35:23

he wouldn't lock in a time and location with Robin.

35:26

Day turned into night, and Robin continued

35:28

to try to schedule a meet up with the seller, but

35:30

the thief was being a little cagey, and

35:33

there was good reason. Robin made

35:35

an early mistake. He originally

35:37

reached out to the cellar using his actual Facebook

35:39

profile. The thief possibly realized

35:42

that the owner was one of the guys that inquired about

35:44

the bike, making everyone suspicious

35:46

to him. Either way, the seller

35:48

wasn't locking in on a time and location to

35:50

meet him. Robin's early excitement

35:53

may have jeopardized the entire recon operation,

35:56

so he had to take a step back and play it cool,

35:58

much more nonchalant. He

36:02

tried contacting the seller again using

36:05

the fake Facebook accounts.

36:07

I was like, hey, you know, it's kind of getting late, because

36:09

now by now we've been pushing him from like

36:11

five five thirty at nights about nine

36:13

nine thirty at night. I was like, you know, we

36:15

can we can still meet up tonight if you want. I'm

36:17

free, I've got nothing to do type of thing. He's

36:20

like, he gave me some random cross

36:22

street that he was nearby, but

36:24

no real set time, Like, hey, let's

36:26

meet at this point in time type of deal.

36:29

Robin turned to the cops again for

36:31

help.

36:32

I called MPD back and I was like, hey,

36:34

this my bike's being listed right

36:36

It's on sale for marketplace right now.

36:38

And they basically said that

36:41

all that they could do was wait you

36:43

know, I would have to set up a buy

36:46

if I could, and then contact

36:48

them and within

36:50

like a thirty minute window and they

36:52

would show up at the meeting point to help

36:54

me recover the bike. I

37:01

was like, okay, well, you know, I'll

37:03

try. I mean, all I've got right now is

37:05

a cross street but no set time

37:08

type of thing. And they're like, well, we can't do it

37:10

unless you've got a setup time,

37:13

you know, very specific type of thing. Mind you, this

37:15

is a Saturday night and there was some

37:18

block party going on, so they were short, shorter

37:20

staffed. I mean I called back

37:22

into the precinct I think two or three times that

37:25

night, and it was the

37:27

same Ky each time. He's like, listen, you

37:29

know, I know this sucks type of

37:31

thing, but you know, unless you've got something

37:33

concrete, I can't send anybody out

37:35

for you type of deal. I'm like, okay,

37:38

well what time you know, And plus they've got a

37:40

ten o'clock recovery cutoff.

37:41

Time, meaning the property recovery department

37:43

closes at ten pm.

37:45

Which makes sense safety wise, so

37:47

we were bumping up against that time frame. So I

37:49

just you know, kind of casually

37:51

almost indifferent. DM, the

37:54

seller back said Hey, you know what, it's getting late. I'm

37:56

free all day Sunday. Let

37:58

me know what time works best type of thing,

38:01

I'm available whatever. So at this point,

38:03

you know, I'm kind of in that mode

38:06

of like, this could not go well, this

38:08

could be gone in the morning, but

38:10

you know, I'm gonna be hopeful.

38:12

Vigilante groups like Twin City Stolen Bikes

38:14

tend to attract people with different expertise.

38:17

There's first the ringleader, the guy that starts

38:19

the group again Sarah M. Robinson.

38:22

And somewhere in the organization

38:24

is somebody who has the skills to make it happen,

38:26

because it's never doesn't seem very

38:29

hard to get people to help, but it does

38:31

seem to hard to get the person who

38:33

says, let's make this happen and this is how

38:35

it's done.

38:36

Then others begin to fill rolls around the first

38:38

mover. In the case of Twin City Stolen

38:41

Bikes, there are the Internet nerds, like the

38:43

guy who contacted Robin first telling him that he

38:45

found the bike on the Facebook marketplace. Then

38:47

there's the guys that like to do the field work, the

38:50

ones that are actually physically recovering

38:52

the bike. Let's call them the recovery specialists.

38:55

Robin was contacted by one of these specialists

38:58

on Saturday night. Next serrvicesman

39:00

that boasted seventy five bike

39:02

recoveries. The specialist actually

39:04

knew the guy that stole Robin's bike.

39:07

He texts me after he was

39:09

off work. He's like, don't worry, man, I know this

39:11

guy. I've seen him before.

39:14

I know his friends. I've recovered

39:16

bikes off of them before. They're

39:18

total junkies. They won't remember

39:21

me. I know his buddy,

39:23

and he's getting off work soon, and

39:25

I'm gonna go swing by his place of work

39:28

and see if maybe he leads me to so

39:31

and so. Right, So, I was just

39:33

floored that this guy not only was

39:35

going to help me out, but he knew

39:37

the thief, and he knew the thief's

39:40

buddies by face, right,

39:43

because he recovered bikes off him before.

39:45

So he's texted me. He goes

39:47

to this guy's work, wats for him to get off

39:50

He actually he's so brazen.

39:52

He goes up to this guy and he's like, hey,

39:55

Jack or whatever, John, whatever his name

39:57

was, And the guy had just kind of ignored him,

39:59

and he was like he was just about to nod off

40:01

dude, because these guys are all

40:04

junkies and just

40:06

fixing their habit basically, so he

40:09

didn't even recognize them, so he followed him. He didn't

40:11

have any success, but he then started

40:14

his own buy attempt later that night.

40:16

But Saturday ended with no set time

40:18

to meet the seller. By the next

40:20

morning, there was still no word.

40:23

I do my normal Sunday Sunday thing.

40:27

Didn't go to church that morning, just wanted to be

40:29

online and ready, you know, waiting and

40:31

everything. So and

40:35

I shot out a few messages and then you know, I don't

40:37

want to be too early, like eight to nine in the morning

40:39

type of deal. So yeah, waited a little bit, ten

40:41

thirty eleven. Hey man, let's meet up by

40:43

the biking stadium type of deal, you know,

40:45

looking to buy it. Blah blah blah.

40:47

But the week had taken its toll on Robin. The

40:49

stress of losing the bike, then finding it,

40:51

hunting down info on the perp, trying

40:53

to get the cops involved, attempting to set up a bye

40:55

time. The rollercoaster of it all wore

40:58

him out a bit, so he began to veg

41:00

out on a PBS documentary, but

41:04

just as he was fully engrossed into some social

41:06

biology film, he gets a notification

41:09

on his phone. The Internet nerd

41:11

from Twin City Stolen Bike sent him a message.

41:14

And he goes, hey, you realize

41:16

there's been a DM back

41:19

from the cellar right.

41:20

I was like, oh more after

41:22

the break? Do

41:26

you want to hear Red Pilled America stories ad

41:29

free? Then become a backstage

41:31

subscriber. Just log onto Redpilled

41:33

America dot com and click join in the top

41:36

menu. Join today and help us save

41:38

America one story at a time.

41:41

Welcome back. So Robin

41:43

was worn out from his rollercoaster of a week trying

41:46

to get back his bike, so he began

41:48

to veg out on a PBS documentary. But

41:51

just as he was fully engrossed into some social

41:53

biology film, he gets a notification

41:56

on his phone. The internet nerd

41:58

from the Twin City Stolen Bike sent

42:00

him a message.

42:02

And he goes, hey, you realize

42:04

there's been a DM back

42:07

on the from the cellar right. I was like, oh crap,

42:09

you know, so I quick get back on and

42:12

the guy is trying to pull the old Uh yeah,

42:14

I'd love to sell it to you type of thing.

42:17

Yeah, I'll even drop twenty five bucks off of

42:19

it because the back tires flat.

42:21

It's like, okay, sure it is. Yeah,

42:24

it makes sense. He's doing this before. He doesn't

42:26

want to meet up with some random and have

42:29

me go on a test drive and then walk

42:31

off with it, you know, or bike off with it, so he

42:33

flattens the tires.

42:34

Robin gets the cellar to lockdown a time. They'll

42:37

meet at the intersection of Portland Avenue in

42:39

Franklin Street, in front of the Halal Meat

42:41

Market, the heart of South Minneapolis,

42:43

near the border of the Somali part of town.

42:46

Not the safest of neighborhoods down that

42:48

way.

42:50

Robin wasn't going to blow it this time. He

42:53

was going to play a cool, not too anxious.

42:56

The thief was no doubt experienced at

42:58

this game. Robin was new to it, but

43:00

learning quickly.

43:01

And again I was kind of casual about it. I was like, yeah, I can

43:03

meet you up maybe in two hours something like that. How

43:05

does that sound?

43:06

You know.

43:06

I just wanted to be you know, you

43:09

know, appease him more or less,

43:11

Uh, just say one gets suspicious.

43:14

And so then

43:16

I got the time and I got the location, so I hit

43:19

up the recovery specialists,

43:22

and he's He's

43:24

like, okay, perfect, I got to go home to get my

43:27

bike. I'll come by and scoop you

43:29

up, and then we'll go and get there early so

43:31

we can so we can do this. I was

43:33

like, all right, perfect.

43:34

Let's take a step back for a moment and just marvel

43:37

at this situation. Here's Robin,

43:39

a newly christened vigilante, searching

43:41

for his sixteen hundred dollars bicycle, first

43:43

working with the Internet nerd of the Twin Cities

43:46

Stolen Bike Club, a perfect stranger

43:48

to locate the bike, and now he's

43:50

waiting to be picked up by the recovery specialist,

43:53

another complete stranger, to embark

43:55

on a recon mission to retrieve his stolen

43:57

bike. How does something like this even happen?

44:11

I mean, initially yes, I was like, why

44:13

are these guys going to help me? Like for what?

44:15

But after joining their group and following their

44:17

posts, he began to figure out why

44:21

Robin got his bike stolen on Monday. He

44:23

began monitoring the Twin City Stolen Bike group

44:25

shortly after, and by the next Sunday

44:27

there were roughly an additional fifty more

44:29

stolen bike listings. That's over

44:31

seven bikes a day, likely well over

44:33

fifty grand for the week, and that's only

44:35

the ones that were reported on the site. This

44:38

was a criminal industry in action, and.

44:40

It gets to the point, yeah, you know where

44:42

there's no deterrent currently

44:45

and.

44:45

The criminals know it. So

44:53

the recovery specialists arrived at Robin's

44:55

pad to pick him up.

45:00

He was probably i'd say mid

45:02

forties, a former

45:04

MP in the army. He

45:07

a total, total shaved head.

45:11

He shows up and you know, we

45:14

introduce ourselves and whatnot. And

45:17

we're in the car and he had been texting me overnight

45:19

and he is shooting me pictures. He's like, you

45:22

know, if it, uh, you know, if it comes

45:24

right down to it, I've got I've got some thief

45:26

be gone. And he shows me this canister which

45:29

is a giant probably oh,

45:31

I would say, maybe this large

45:34

sized cannister of bear mace. Uh.

45:36

And he's got one of those I don't even want

45:38

what they're called, like those police batons

45:41

that kind of extend out when you

45:43

whip it a little bit. I don't know what they're called.

45:45

Anyway, So he's got all this gear and

45:48

so we drive to the spot, and I'm kind

45:50

of getting a little nervous because I'm like, you know what, we're

45:52

bumping up close to the time. I want to be there a little

45:54

early, you know, so we're not late type of thing. And

45:56

he, you know, backs out anyway,

45:58

So we do. We get there early. We park

46:00

in a little back parking lot

46:05

of a nearby establishment. He gets out

46:07

his bike, he saddles up, puts all

46:09

his gear in his pockets and whatnot. We

46:12

devise our scheme, which was to me to ultimately

46:14

go to the corner of the meetup spot, and

46:17

he was going to circle around the block to see

46:19

if he could spot him coming. So

46:21

he did, he couldn't find he didn't see him initially

46:24

in his first pass around the block,

46:27

I findal made it to the intersection at

46:29

the meeting point.

46:30

As the recovery specialist circled around, he

46:33

saw another guy, a big, burly bearded

46:35

dude on a bike. The

46:41

specialist stopped him, apprised him

46:43

of the situation and asked if he'd help in

46:45

case the thief made a run for it, and.

46:47

The guy was like, yeah, sure, I'd be happy to help. So no

46:51

sooner had he done that, but

46:53

I'm like, you know, kaka,

46:55

because I see the guy walking up the street

46:58

with my bike.

47:00

The thief had arrived, but Robin

47:03

was stuck across the intersection from the burglar

47:05

with heavy traffic flowing through the street.

47:08

So I can't do anything yet at this

47:10

point.

47:10

But the recovery specialist and his new

47:13

burly sidekick were near the culprit

47:15

and they decided to make their move. They

47:18

confronted the thief and grabbed a hold of his

47:20

bike's handlebars. The excitement

47:22

got the best of them and Robin couldn't

47:24

wait any longer, and.

47:25

I dart out basically in the traffic,

47:28

almost got hit by a bar, you

47:31

know, stunted, waited for the car to go by, and

47:36

then I just took off. You I had full tilt,

47:39

you know, running as fast as I can, and

47:41

had I wanted to, it could have just easily

47:43

been a straight up, you know, tackle

47:46

of the guy straight down onto the concrete

47:48

type of thing, you know, felony

47:50

type of assault on my part.

47:52

But you know, they both got hands on the handlebars,

47:55

so I know I'm in good company there. I

47:57

know that you know, we've got it possession.

48:00

I was like, yep, that's mine, and for

48:02

ninety seconds, I'm just raging

48:05

on this dude just in his face.

48:08

He's taller than me by like maybe two inches

48:10

or so, probably has at this point

48:13

maybe only like ten five pounds

48:15

on me. And I literally just

48:17

haven't raged like that since I was a hormonal

48:19

teenager, honestly.

48:21

But the seller said that he hadn't stolen the bike,

48:23

he'd bought it off Craigslist.

48:25

I mean, my heart was, my heart rate was elevated.

48:28

It was probably like beating over my head out

48:31

of my chest type of thing. And I you

48:33

know, like like, I know your probation officer.

48:36

I've already called him. You know, he's having

48:38

fun going back to jail type of thing.

48:44

But his eyes lit up as soon as

48:46

I mentioned his probation officer's

48:48

name, and he did one of those the

48:51

classic like cartoon

48:53

like the backwalking. You know,

48:55

just kind of started backwalking like

48:58

you'd walk into a room and then you just kind of

49:00

eyes get wide and start backwalking, and

49:02

then all of a sudden, you know, he just kind of turned around

49:04

and just started scampering away like at a

49:07

very fast pace with.

49:08

His bike now in hand, chasing after

49:10

the thief didn't make as much sense. The

49:13

burly bearded guy had groceries and

49:15

had to get home. Robin's tire had

49:17

a flat, so he couldn't chase him down, and

49:19

there was no need to put the recovery specialist

49:21

in a dangerous situation like you know what.

49:23

At this point, I think we have enough to go on

49:26

where well, you know

49:28

it, we'll just nab him once they get

49:30

in contact with the cops and his po and

49:32

we'll just get him that way, Which.

49:40

Leads us back to the question when is it

49:42

okay to take the law into your own hands.

49:48

In Robin's case, he performed his own

49:50

investigation, found video of the theft,

49:52

identified the culprit, alerted his probation

49:55

officer, and tried to get the police involved

49:57

all along the way. When he couldn't get them

49:59

to help, Robin joined a vigilanti group

50:02

to seek justice on his own, and

50:04

he succeeded without breaking the

50:06

law. Robin still hasn't heard

50:08

back from the police, and we tried contacting

50:10

them ourselves with no response. So

50:13

when is it okay to take the law into your own

50:15

hands? The answer is, well,

50:18

this one time, We're going to leave that answer

50:20

up to you. But I think it's fair

50:22

to say that the answer looks a lot like

50:24

the vigilante justice of Robin

50:26

Hour. We recently spoke

50:28

to Robin and he told us someone tried to steal

50:30

his back again shortly after the George Floyd

50:33

riots. They didn't succeed, but

50:35

the attempt left his chariot inoperable.

50:38

Robin decided he's had enough and he's leaving

50:40

Minneapolis for greener pastures. We

50:43

wish him and his bye good luck.

50:45

Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original

50:47

podcast. It's produced by me Adrianna

50:50

Cortez and Patrick Carrelchi for Inform Ventures.

50:52

Now, our entire archive of episodes is

50:55

only available to our backstage subscribers.

50:57

To subscribe, visit redpild America dot

50:59

com and click support at the top of the menu.

51:02

That's Redpilled America dot com and click support

51:04

at the top of the menu. Thanks for listening.