September 8, 2025 • 51 mins
When is it okay to take the law into your own hands? To find the answer, we follow the story of a Minneapolis man’s quest to get law enforcement to help him nab a bike thief…and how their inaction made him seek out vigilante justice.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America.
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Speaker 1 (00:34):
We originally broadcast this episode on September twentieth, twenty nineteen,
and we have a new update at the end. Enjoy
Vigilante Justice. I think we can all agree that the
right is pro law enforcement, but a new movement has
slowly been spreading across the nation, a trend to try
and lower our prison populations by raising our felony threshold,
(00:58):
and some cities are feeling the unintended consequences.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Crimes are on the rise in California, and researchers think
they know why.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Proposition forty seven is that voter approved initiative that downgraded
some crimes in order to free up more prison space.
Our social media feeds are filled with videos of people
committing petty crimes, with law enforcement often overwhelmed in big cities.
A question is arising even amongst supporters of our men
in blue, and that is when is it okay to
(01:25):
take the law into your own hands.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm Patrick Currelci and I'm Adriana Cortes.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Many on the political right place their
(02:16):
complete trust in our law enforcement. Trump voters in particular,
praise them at every opportunity. But there's a new trend
that's tying the hands of our men in blue, and
it's beginning to erode confidence in our government's ability to
make good on the order. Part of law and order,
progressive groups and even some on the right are pushing
to reduce prison populations in a way that has some
(02:37):
unintended consequences. Organizations like the SBLC has been pushing for
local government to raise the felony threshold, and some cities
are seeing a rise in property crime as a result.
With law enforcement's hands full fighting more serious crimes, citizens
and small business owners may begin to wonder when is
it okay to take the law into your own hands.
(02:59):
To find the answer, we follow the story of a
Minneapolis man's to get law enforcement to help him nab
a thief and how they're in action made him seek
out vigilante justice. Robin Hour doesn't sound like the kind
of guy that would become a vigilante. A numbers man
(03:21):
with a master's degree from a rural town, a graduate
with honors that went on to become a banker, But
after a series of frustrating exchanges with local law enforcement,
Robin would add vigilante to his resume as well. He
grew up in a small farming town called Hutchinson, Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It's about seventy miles straight west of Minneapolis Saint Paul
metro area.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
That's Robin. The town's population is now roughly fourteen thousand,
and it hasn't grown much since his sister, mom, dad,
and him called it home. His mother was a school
teacher for forty years and his father was a lifetime
state bureaucrat who hypercommuted the eighty five miles to work
in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I mean, it was pretty much that you know, Maybury
existence type of thing where me and my buddies to
get up in the daytime and cracking it, you know,
as soon as the sun came up, we had breakfast.
We were on our bikes and out all day and
came back for lunch and out till it got dark
and home for dinner type of thing.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He attended public school, and as a kid, Robin had
a thing for Ronald Reagan, going as far as sending
the president a.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Letter invited him to my birthday party as like a
five year old or something like that, and crazy enough,
you know, two years after that he actually sent a
reply to me.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
In grade school, Robin was a bit of a troublemaker,
but nothing major. He graduated high school with honors and
followed his future wife to Minnesota State University Mankato. He
started off studying finance, but later switched to economics.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I just didn't care for the finance guys, kind of
you know, the preppy dorks that I once was in
high school, but at the time just kind of rebelled
the against that. Plus I like the critical thinking aspect
and the math aspect of economic.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
In their spare time, him and his then girlfriend became
live music junkies.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
We traveled the country seeing music, and I think I've
seen over three thousand concerts in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The two were a bit of an odd couple. Robin
carried his fondness for Reagan's politics into his twenties, while
his girlfriend was, in his words, super liberal and had
the hairstyle to prove it.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Dreadhead and that whole bit. And I myself had long
hair down to my waistline.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
He graduated from college with honors in two thousand and
six and took a job as a research analyst at
the Minnesota Department of Transportation. But Robin came to the
decision that he wanted to pursue a career in alternative energy,
so he entered the master's program at the Colorado School
of Mines, a university devoted to engineering and Applied Science,
where he studied mineral economics. But when he finished the
(05:58):
program in May two thousand and nine, the country was
in the height of the financial crisis, making jobs even
in technical industries hard to come by.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
So my dreams of becoming an alternative energy analyst were
kind of dashed there, because it was a chicken in
an egg situation. Do you have someone in the industry
that you know, or do you have a lot of experience.
I had neither.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Like many during the Great Recession, Robin was forced to
find work where he could, so he turned to retail banking.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
They hired me on as a bank teller. So here
I am with a master's degree in in advanced economics,
essentially with six figures worth of debt, and I'm starting
at like ten bucks an hour as a bank teller,
not even in a main branch, mind you, in a
disconnected motor bank branch.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
But he rolled up his sleeves and within six months
he got a banker position, and within a year Robin
was elevated to a licensed banker. It began settling in
and in twenty eleven, on their ten year dating anniversary
to the day, Robin and his girlfriend got married. The
two moved back to Minnesota the following year, and Robin
(07:14):
began a new corporate job at a retail bank.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, like I said, bought a house, but you know,
things were leading to the next I knew the next
step with kids, and yeah, it just got to a
point where we really couldn't talk anymore about anything because
it always swung back to politics and me disagreeing with her,
and you know, my opinions were seen by her as
(07:40):
offensive to or demeaning to her opinion, as though I
wasn't not only just disagreeing, but thought I was somehow
making this huge slight against her ideology. And it just
clicked on me. I was like, not only is this
not going to work out between us, but this is
exactly what the left is like their ideology, the political
(08:03):
ideology is now their religion. And it was a total
eye opening moment.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Luckily when Robin came to this realization, there were no
kids in the picture if.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
We only had a house and a dog. Really, so
it was an amical breakup from you know, financial standpoint,
who basically just went our separate ways. Kind of odd thing.
You know, you spend end up spending thirteen odd years
with someone and you can divorce in the like twenty
eight days. I think it was.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So Robin was basically starting over, but this time loaded
up with a bit of a financial anchor.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You know. It was kind of, you know, kind of crazy.
We went from this house in the suburbs, the you know,
kind of picturesque little life too. Ultimately moved in with
my sister for a year, moved in with a couple
of college buddies for a year, paid off some of
the debt that I inherited from, you know, the relationship
and the wedding and all that, and then I moved
downtown here two years ago, in May of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Moving to downtown Minneapolis sparked a question for Robin. A
few years earlier, just two days after moving in with
his sister, Robin got into a car accident on his
way to work. Not having a lot of savings after
the divorce, he decided to lease a car.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
You know, so I got I leased a new car,
and I, after I started doing the math, I was like,
you know what with the rent or the downtown rental
parking spot, the insurance, the car payment, all of the gas,
the maintenance, everything. It was like as much as a
cheap apartment down here, seven eight hundred bucks a month.
So after the lease was up, I did. I moved downtown,
(09:35):
got myself a cheap apartment, and started this downtown experiment.
And I figured, hey, you know what, I'm going to
be working within ten blocks of my work. I'm going
to get rid of my car. I'm gonna, you know,
just give it a shot. Really, I'm gonna buy a
nice bike bike to work every day.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
All of his friends lived in and around downtown, so
they were just a twenty to thirty minute bike right away.
His sister was also closer, so he decided to hell
with a car payment.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So, yeah, I bought this nice bike as a gift
to myself, and you know, kind of tricked it out.
I guess I got it from a local. They call
it a co op. I guess it's called the Hub
bike co Op.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Even with its below zero winter temperatures, Minneapolis surprisingly has
one of the biggest bicycling cultures in America. It consistently
makes Bicycling magazines top five bike friendly cities, and in
twenty ten, the magazine even ranked it as the number
one bike friendly town in America, enraging the blue haired
male feminist cyclist of Portland.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
There's definitely a huge bike culture here. Some Minneapolis runs
along the Mississippi River. It was built up there in
the eighteen hundreds. It's not uncommon on the trail on
Saturday morning to see twenty thirty deep of all of
these guys decked out in their full on racing gear
paddage shorts, and they're twenty eight one hundred five thousand
(11:07):
dollars racing bikes, all in a pack. And it's, to
be honest with you, it's just it's obnoxious. I mean,
we have dedicated bike lanes downtown on pretty much every street.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Minneapolis is also super flat, the perfect terrain for bicycling.
It's also, along with fellow bike friendly cities Portland, Seattle,
San Francisco, New York City and others, a politically liberal
city where biking is more than just a mode of transportation,
it's a fashion statement.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah, there is a little bit of a haughtiness about it.
I mean, just this morning, I was riding next to
one of these guys on like those three wheel tricycle
recumbent style things, and when we came up to a light,
I just kind of leaned back and I asked him,
I'm like, say, how much does a bike like that
go for? I'm thinking of grabbing my dad one for
(11:58):
his birthday. He's like, well, this one's four thousand, but
you can get one for like eighteen hundred of them. Well,
maybe I'll think of a different option. But anyway, as
haughty as they are about their uber expensive bikes and
all of their equipment and helmet usage, and you know,
just the culture in it of itself, they are I
(12:20):
will say, very very loyal to one another's there's a
certain camaraderie that exists amongst them.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Robin hadn't had a bike in over a decade, so
he began doing some research and in August twenty seventeen,
he decided to buy a Jamus Renegade Exile bike from
the Hub Bike co Op with some aftermarket parts vendors, reflectors, pedals.
He was in about sixteen hundred dollars. For roughly a
year and a half, the bike was his primary source
(12:49):
of transportation without a hitch.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
I'd normally keep it inside, and it is inside overnight,
you know, more often than it isn't, you know, typically
every night I keep it inside, but this one night,
I just fell asleep on the couch for whatever reason,
didn't grab it. Went out the next morning and I
saw it. It was still connected to the street sign,
(13:15):
but it was lying on the ground the hell so,
you know, I looked at it, and the lock did
its job, but there was a big a dent in
the main frame of it, right, So now I'm thinking, well, great,
the structural integrity might be compromised. So I took it
in and ultimately we tested it, you know, some ping
(13:35):
tests and stuff like that, and they were convinced and
I was. My fears were assuage that it was still
legit and worth riding. So yeah, the bike had the
attempted theft, and while it didn't, you know, go as
planned for the thief, I'm convinced it messed up the
lock itself because the key thereafter to open it became
(14:02):
increasingly more and more sticky and problematic to open. And
flash forward to this year. I got done with work
one day and the key just wouldn't open. It was stuck, right,
So I tried everything, couldn't get it open. It ultimately
had to have a locksmith come and cut the u
lock off my bike so I could get it home,
and I was just using my backup cable lock at
(14:24):
the time until I could buy a new one.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
With the much less protective cable lock now in the mix.
Robin was playing a game of Russian Roulette with his
sixteen hundred dollars chariot, but he decided he'd get through
the week with his backup and buy a new one,
a much sturdier U shaped barlock, the coming weekend. But
little did he know that that simple decision would be
the first domino to drop on his road to becoming
(14:49):
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Speaker 2 (16:01):
Welcome back. I'm Adrianna Quartes So. Robin's bike survived a
theft attempt, but in the process, the lock on his
sturdy U shaped barlock became sticky and gradually began to
malfunction until it no longer worked. The locksmith had to
cut it off, and Robin decided to use his spare
cable lock until the following week and would he'd be
(16:21):
able to buy a new barlock. But little did he
know that this simple decision would be the first Domino
to drop on his road to becoming a vigilante. When
he got off work that Monday in mid July, Robin
rode his bike home and like every other day, pedaled
up to the parking meter kiosk outside his place.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
And so I was locked up to that. And I
get home at about five fifteen or whatever. So I
locked it up, went upstairs to make supper and listened
to some news and yeah, I loaded up my bag
to make my nightly trip to the gym, and went
outside probably about ten o'clock, and I looked and it
(17:05):
was gone. And I was like, wait, did I park
it somewhere else? I looked up and down the street,
and now it was gone, sure enough. And I looked
where it was and there was the cable lock on
the ground cut in half.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There are a lot of people who have experienced their
bike being stolen. If it happens to you as a kid,
it's likely your first taste of the real world. Something
you loved that is probably your first really expensive possession
has been snatched by someone within your community. Getting your
bike stolen as a child is really a coming of
age moment where you first realize that there are people
out there looking to take what you have, but as
(17:42):
an adult, the theft can have more practical consequences. This
was what Robin experienced.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Man I did the old man fist shake and curse
to the sky type of thing. You know, it's anger,
of course, because you never want to have anything taken
from you that you know shouldn't be. You're actually kind
of angered at You're upset with yourself a little bit too,
because you know better in a way, especially knowing what
I know about the city, just you know the crime
(18:10):
that exists around here. And plus I'd had different accessories
like lights stolen off my bike before in the past
since moving here. But then it, you know, it was
kind of this you know, despair, like, well, now I'm
going to walk to work type thing, and it's just
gonna be super inconvenient. How am I gonna get groceries
all that stuff? But yeah, the victimization feeling, you know,
you just feel that you know something of yours was
(18:32):
taken that shouldn't have been, and it just makes you
feel bad not only about the situation you're immediately in,
but just also about your community. You know, your city
that you know people like this live in the same
spot that you yourself have chosen willingly to move to
and live amongst. You know, whether this person was my
(18:54):
neighbor or not, or whether he lived in some other
portion of the city, it's still you know, he's part
of this community. Yeah, he doesn't give you good any
good feelings. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
After he gathered himself, Robin did what you're supposed to
do in these situations. He contacted law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
So yeah, I called the Minneapolis PD, called nine one one,
got a patrolman to come out. I'd say maybe thirty
minutes later, which is surprising that he was there that quick.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
He gave the cop the time range that it was stolen,
somewhere between five point fifteen PM and ten pm. Every
bike comes with a serial number, but like most people,
Robin hadn't recorded his, so he filed the police report
without it.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
The guy, the patrolman, who I knew, was just going
to take the report and then you put it over
to the stolen property group. I didn't really get much
of an explanation as to what's going to happen. I
asked him flat. I was like, what's the likelihood of
this getting returned? He says it's not likely, don't I
don't know if he said, I'd be shocked if you
(20:01):
get it back, but that's kind of how presented to
me in a way.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
In two thousand and seven, Minnesota was one of the
earliest states to substantially raise its felony threshold, doubling it
from five hundred to one thousand dollars. Because Robin put
about sixteen hundred dollars into the bike, even with its
devaluation over the course of two years, it was likely
right at the threshold for a felony in Minneapolis, but
(20:26):
Robin still didn't feel confident that the police department would
be much help, so he began his own citizen investigation.
It just so happened that right across the street from
his place was the Hennepin County Medical Center, and the facility,
just a year earlier had some upgrades.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
This particular side of the building has a flood an
entire bank of cameras, and I was like, you know what,
that camera right there looks like it's pointed directly at
where my bike is parked. Sure enough, it was, so.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
He asked the hospital for help. The security guard on
nightwatch told him to contact the head of security that
would be on site in the am, and.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
So I did following morning, reached out, let her know
what was going on and just requested if she could
find video, gave her all the details, what cross streets
it was between, you know, rough time of day.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And within a few hours, sure enough she found the
moment of the bike heist.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
She confirmed back that she had not only still images
of the thief, but you know, the actual video footage
of him stealing it, and gave me a pinpointed time.
Five forty seven pm is when it was stolen.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
The thief was brazen. He snatched the bike in broad
daylight about thirty minutes after Robin got home, and it
was all caught on camera. The problem was that the
hospital couldn't give Robin the footage of the theft.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
The hospital wasn't able to disclose it to me directly,
and so so I asked her, so, how do we
go about getting this footage into the police's hands. Can
you send it specifically to someone at MPD or do
they have to request it? Can I take it in
like a you know, a downloaded form and transport it
(22:21):
from you to them type of thing, and you know,
She basically said, well, they have to request it from us,
and she's like, don't worry, they do it all the
time for other types of crimes. I'm like, yeah, well,
you know, I'll believe it when I see it, which
this particular one.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Robin contacted the Minneapolis Police Department and let them know
about the video. Again, the MPD took the information, but
Robin didn't get the feeling that they were going to
move on it, so he pressed on with his investigation. Now,
each bike has a unique serial number on the frame,
kind of like your car's been number. Knowing that the
(23:02):
burglar was caught off video, Robin needed to go back
to the police department with this bike's actual serial number,
so that if the police put in the work and
found the thief, they could confirm that the bike in
his possession was in fact Robin's.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
I called up the hub the Bike co Op and
had to get my serial numbers so I could amend
my police report. And it was in the course of
talking with them, I asked, you know, what do you
guys recommend doing in a situation like that? Do you
have any tips, anything that I can do to be proactive,
because I didn't really have high hopes from MPD, knowing
(23:37):
what I know about their short staffing and stuff like that.
They basically said, well, good luck, man, but don't expect
MPD to do anything. That's just not going to happen.
But what you can do is join this Facebook group
called Twin Cities Stolen Bikes. I was like, there's a
(23:58):
Facebook group for stolen bikes. That was news to me.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You'd think the social media group would have maybe a
few dozen or possibly a few hundred members, but you'd
be wildly off in that estimation. The Facebook page of
Twin City Stolen Bikes now has over eight thousand, three
hundred members, and it's a vigilante group with one primary
purpose reconnecting bike owners with their stolen bikes. Bike theft
(24:27):
is a real problem nationwide because it hits that sweet
spot of being a big enough financial grab to make
it worth the thieves while, but not big enough to
spark the interest of law enforcement. It's also unique in
that the stolen property acts as the getaway vehicle. A
July twenty nineteen study published by Project five twenty nine,
a bike registry organization, found that over two million bikes
(24:51):
are stolen each year in North America, meaning one is
stolen every thirty seconds, making it a billion dollar problem.
Over the last two decades, bike thefts have doubled, and
one announ by The Oregonian in Portland found that only
two percent of reported bike thefts in their city resulted
in arrests. Many cities with flourishing bicycle cultures have bike
(25:13):
recovery Facebook groups, but at most they number in the
hundreds of members. Twin cities, stolen bikes membership bar exceeds
any other town, giving an indication of the extent of
the problem. In Minneapolis, law enforcement is obviously not curbing
the crime problem, and that's the dynamic that typically gives
rise to vigilante groups.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
So there's a huge array of these groups and it's
so interesting where they come up.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's Sarah M. Robinson, co author of the book Shadow Vigilantes,
how distrust in the justice system breeds a new kind
of lawlessness.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And for instance, San Francisco used to be unfriendly towards
their gay community, and so of the gay community formed
the Lava under Panthers right there with the Black Panthers,
and they took on the gay bashers. The police wouldn't
(26:11):
so they did. They got the grapemobile, they got I
don't know, like a VW van. They painted at lavender
and if somebody was in trouble, they'd get a call
and these guys would leap out with their pool sticks
and start whacking back, and suddenly the police were willing
to address it. You know, if somebody comes to a
(26:31):
bar and starts hassling some gay community member, they whip
out their pool sticks and they lay into them. Well,
suddenly the police are motivated. Or during the Civil Rights era,
there was a group called the Deacons of Defense and
Justice and they were vets who were back in the
(26:51):
Delta and they weren't going to tolerate the the klu
Klux Klan and the authorities siding with them, so they
stood up. These were Africanamericamerican veterans who were armed, they
knew how to use their weapons, and they just said no,
and what do you know, it worked. So there is
a lot of vigilanteism, and it's hard to say that
(27:14):
these people are necessarily wrong to do whatever it is
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
When law and order isn't fulfilling its obligation to the public.
Large vigilante groups like twin cities, stolen bikes organically form. Again,
Sarah and Robinson.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Think about all the vigilante movies. People care about justice.
So are they getting their eight thousand people just because
people care about stolen bikes? Or are they getting their
eight thousand people because people care about justice and this
is a way that they can participate in justice. And
I'm not saying which is which, but it seems eight
(27:49):
thousand is a very big number if we're just responding
to stolen bikes. But if what we're responding to is
this idea that I can do something about justice, well
those numbers start to make a lot more sense to me.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
The eight thousand plus membership is what also caught Robin's.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Eye, and that's what piqued my interest into thinking that
this is a larger problem than I had even realized.
So I did. I linked up to the group, spoke
with an administrator, went through the whole process of getting
enrolled or become a member or whatever. I posted my
(28:27):
bike with the image that I had posted all the
particulars and reached out to various people and just asked
him for tips and my friends and family and so forth.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
The feedback that he got was that he needed to
start monitoring all the resale apps and websites because the
thief was going to likely try and sell the stolen
merchandise in the very near future.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
And so I downloaded a bunch of resale apps and
started checking on Craigslist and Facebook, Marketplace, and I just
became part of my job. Basically, I did, you know,
did that two three times a day, morning, lunch break,
and in the evening just page through and I had
(29:10):
some free time.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
At the close of Tuesday, though he found nothing. He
searched again on Wednesday, still nothing. Then Thursday and Friday
came and went, no sign of his bike. Robin was
getting discouraged, and on top of that, he had no transportation.
He was forced to walk the roughly twenty blocks to
work him back, no doubt, his anger and frustration building
(29:34):
all along the way.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
And at this point, I'm thinking, you know, this is
not happening. You know, I was just kind of getting
dejected about it. I debated, you know, biting the bullet
and buying a new bike and putting down more money
and whatnot. But I just figured, you know, I'm gonna
give it at least a week. It's not meant to be.
After a week, then I'll start really thinking about it.
So I had I had done my like mid afternoon
(29:57):
scrolling for the day on Saturday, and I was just
hanging about watching TV. I don't even know what I
was doing really, when I get a a DM from
one of the administrators in the group.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The administrators of the Twin City Stolen Bike group are
the Internet nerds, and I mean that affectionately, glued to
the reselling.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Apps, saying hey, I see your bikes for sale on
Facebook Marketplace. I'm I'm going to establish a buy and
you know, get the ball rolling on that. And immediately
my heart starts pounding. I'm like, you know, kind of
like that nervous energy, you've got a big job interview,
you're about to take a girl out on a first
date type thing. I was just like, you've got to
be kidd by, you know, kind of get all jittery,
(30:36):
like I'd had too much caffeine.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
So Robin logs into Facebook Marketplace to check out the
bike listing that the nerd sent him, and sure enough,
it was his bike.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
That's it. I mean, yeah, there's some parts stripped off
of it, but that is it. I mean, because the
nice thing about my bike is that it is customized.
I mean it has blue bike cables, it has blue
handlebar wrap, it has a white white pedals, you know,
so it's very distinct from the stock model that I
could have just had.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Robin had a mix of emotions. He was elated that
he'd found his bike, but he was enraged at the
same time. Here is the guy trying to sell his bike,
the one he'd put a whopping sixteen hundred dollars into.
The heist was caught on tape. Yet the Minneapolis Police
Department was not helping. The injustice of it all ate
away at Robin, and a vigilante was born.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
It was like, I'm going to beat the mother. And
I am so happy that it's not been sold yet,
that it's still posted online, that I can still see
it out there, that it's not gone yet, because once
it's gone, I mean, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So Robin found it. Now all he had to do
was try to schedule a bye with the thief. But
this is where things got a little tricky. Trying to
contact the cellar. Facebook means that your real identity would
likely be given over to a person that has committed
a felony. He got an itchy finger and reached out
to the guy using his real Facebook identity. But then
(32:13):
Robin got wise and shifted tactics.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
So I see the ad and I reach out to
my close core buddies and my family, sister, brother in law,
and we all. I was like, okay, so this is
what we're going to do. Everybody established like a fictitious
profile if you can, if you're willing to do it,
and you don't want to use your own, the nice
thing is the TCSB. That's what I'm gonna refer to
(32:38):
him as the bike club. They had a bunch of
fictitious profiles created, so I logged in as that person
and started to try and make a buy of my own,
as well as my other buddies, many of whom live
out state, so they didn't care if they had a
fictitious profile or not. They just used their own. So
we all tried to establish a buy like, hey, is
(33:01):
this still for sale? How much you're offering? Can I
do a test drive type of questions stuff like that.
So we all started that process and I called MPD again.
Now by now I probably called them three four times
throughout the week, just you know, give him a couple
updates of what I knew, stuff like that about the video,
(33:23):
like hey, there's video footage, still frame, blah blah blah.
And I've got some friends on the force here, so
I was reaching out to them as well, and they're like, oh, man,
you're kidding. You got this info. That's great, y'all reach
out to the lieutenant or whatever in the property crimes group.
But nobody ever got back to me. Nobody ever called
(33:44):
me back.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Now, remember Robin hadn't been given access to the video
of the heightst captured by the hospital, so he couldn't
be sure if the guy selling his bike was the
same guy that stole it. The seller looked in his
mid twenties, white guy, tallish, maybe six foot one, broad shoulders.
He had the frame of a big dude, but looked
like he wasthering away. So he began to dig deeper
(34:09):
into the cellar to see what he could find.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
So I've got some technologist buddies as well, and they
started nerding out on this guy who was selling it
on Facebook, and they started looking him up in criminal databases,
and lo and behold, this guy who was selling it
was using his actual real name. And how do we
(34:33):
know that because we found him on probation in Hennepin
County for theft, and we matched up the photos, same name,
same face, dead match.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Posting a stolen bike under a real name is so
easily trackable. This gives a good indication of how Afreid
Minneapolis bike These are of local law enforcement. Translation, they
have zero fear. So Robin took it upon himself to
apply some press. Sure his tech friends helped him track
down the thief's probation officer. Robin tried calling, but it
(35:09):
was the weekend, so no one picked up. He left
a voicemail, then emailed the thief's Facebook profile to the
probation officer along with the stolen bike, listing this thief
stole from the wrong guy. Finally, late Saturday afternoon, the
seller responded, but he wouldn't lock in a time and
location with Robin. Day turned into night, and Robin continued
(35:30):
to try to schedule a meet up with the seller,
but the thief was being a little cagey, and there
was good reason. Robin made an early mistake. He originally
reached out to the cellar using his actual Facebook profile.
The thief possibly realized that the owner was one of
the guys that inquired about the bike, making everyone suspicious
to him. Either way, the seller wasn't locking in on
(35:51):
a time and location to meet him. Robin's early excitement
may have jeopardized the entire recon operation, so he had
to take a step back and play it cool, much
more nonchalant. He tried contacting the cellar again using the
fake Facebook accounts.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
I was like, hey, you know, it's kind of getting late,
because now by now we've been pushing him from like
five five thirty at nights about nine nine thirty at night.
I was like, you know, we can we can still
meet up tonight if you want. I'm free, I've got
nothing to do type of thing. He's like, he gave
me some random cross street that he was nearby, but
no real set time, Like, hey, let's meet at this
(36:29):
point in time type of deal.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Robin turned to the cops again for help.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I called MPD back and I was like, hey, this
my bike's being listed right It's on sale for marketplace
right now. And they basically said that all that they
could do was wait, you know, I would have to
set up a buy if I could, and then contact
them and within like a thirty minute window and they
(36:54):
would show up at the meeting point to help me
recover the bike. I was like, okay, well, you know,
I'll try. I mean, all i've got right now is
a cross street but no set time type of thing.
And they're like, well, we can't do it unless you've
got a setup time, you know, very specific type of thing.
(37:17):
Mind you, this is a Saturday night and there was
some block party going on, so they were short, shorter staffed.
I mean I called back into the precinct I think
two or three times that night, and it was the
same Kuy each time. He's like, listen, you know, I
know this sucks type of thing, but you know, unless
you've got something concrete, I can't send anybody out for
(37:38):
you type of deal. I'm like, okay, well what time
you know? And plus they've got a ten o'clock recovery
cutoff time.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Meaning the property recovery department closes at ten pm.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Which makes sense safety wise, so we were bumping up
against that time frame. So I just, you know, kind
of casually, almost indifferent. DM the seller back, said hey,
you know what, it's getting late I'm free all day Sunday.
Let me know what time works, best type of thing,
I'm available whatever. So at this point, you know, I'm
kind of in that mode of like, this could not
(38:09):
go well, this could be gone in the morning, but
you know, I'm gonna be hopeful.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Vigilante groups like Twin City Stolen Bikes tend to attract
people with different expertise. There's first the ringleader, the guy
that starts the group again Sarah and Robinson.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And somewhere in the organization is somebody who has the
skills to make it happen, because it's never doesn't seem
very hard to get people to help, but it does
seem to hard to get the person who says, let's
make this happen and this is how it's done.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Then others begin to fill rolls around the first mover.
In the case of Twin City Stolen Bikes, there are
the Internet nerds, like the guy who contacted Robin first
telling him that he found the bike on the Facebook marketplace.
Then there's the guys that like to do the field work,
the ones that are actually physically recovering the bike. Let's
call them the recovery specialists. Robin was contacted by one
(38:59):
of these specialists on Saturday night, an next serviceman that
boasts seventy five bike recoveries. The specialist actually knew the
guy that stole Robin's bike.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
He texts me after he was off work. He's like,
don't worry, man, I know this guy. I've seen him before.
I know his friends. I've recovered bikes off of them before.
They're total junkies. They won't remember me. I know his buddy,
and he's getting off work soon, and I'm gonna go
swing by his place of work and see if maybe
(39:31):
he leads me to so and so. Right, So I
was just floored that this guy not only was gonna
help me out, but he knew the thief, and he
knew the thief's buddies by face right, because he recovered
bikes off him before. So he's texted me. He goes
to this guy's work ways for him to get off.
(39:52):
He actually he's so brazen. He goes up to this
guy and he's like, hey, Jack or whatever, John, whatever
his name was, And the guy had just kind of
ignored him, and he was like he was just about
to not off, dude, because these guys are all junkies
and just fixing their habit basically, so he didn't even
recognize them, so he followed him. He didn't have any success,
(40:15):
but he then started his own by attempt later that night.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
But Saturday ended with no set time to meet the seller.
By the next morning, there was still no word.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I do my normal Sunday Sunday thing. Didn't go to
church that morning, just wanted to be online and ready,
you know, waiting and everything. So and I shot out
a few messages and then, you know, I don't want
to be too early, like eight nine in the morning
type of deal, So I waited a little bit, ten
thirty eleven. Hey man, let's meet up by the biking
(40:45):
stadium type of deal, you know, looking to buy it.
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
But the week had taken its toll on Robin. The
stress of losing the bike, then finding it, hunting down
info on the PURP, trying to get the cops involved,
attempting to set up a bye time. The rollercoaster of
it all wore him out a bit, so he began
to veg out on a PBS documentary, but just as
he was fully engrossed into some social biology film, he
(41:10):
gets a notification on his phone. The internet nerd from
Twin City Stolen Bike sent him a message.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And he goes, hey, you realize there's been a DM
back from the cellar right.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
I was like, oh more after the break? Do you
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help us save America one story at a time.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Welcome back. So Robin was worn out from his rollercoaster
of a week trying to get back his bike, so
he began to veg out on a PBS documentary. But
just as he was fully engrossed into some social biology film,
he gets a notification on his phone. The internet nerd
from the Twin City Stolen Bike sent him a message.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
And he goes, hey, you realize there's been a DM
back on the from the cellar right. I was like,
oh crap, you know, so I quick get back on
and the guy is trying to pull the old Uh yeah,
I'd love to sell it to you type of thing.
I'll even drop twenty five bucks off of it because
the back tires flat it's like, okay, sure it is. Yeah,
(42:26):
it makes sense. He's doing this before. He doesn't want
to meet up with some random and have me go
on a test drive and then walk off with it,
you know, or bike off with it, so he flattens
the tires.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Robin gets the cellar to lockdown a time. They'll meet
at the intersection of Portland Avenue in Franklin Street, in
front of the Halal meat Market, the heart of South Minneapolis,
near the border of the Somali part of town.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Not the safest of neighborhoods down that way.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Robin wasn't going to blow it this time. He was
going to play a cool, not too anxious. The thief
was no doubt experienced at this game. Robin was new
to it, but learning quickly.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And again I was kind of casual about it. I
was like, yeah, I can meet you up maybe in
two hours something like that. How does that sound? You know.
I just wanted to be you know, you know, appease
him more or less, just say one gets suspicious. And
so then I got the time and I got the location.
So I hit up the recovery specialists and he's he's like, okay, perfect,
(43:28):
I got to go home to get my bike. I'll
come by and scoop you up, and then we'll go
and get there early so we can so we can
do this. I was like, all right, perfect.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Let's take a step back for a moment and just
marvel at this situation. Here's Robin, a newly christened vigilante,
searching for his sixteen hundred dollars bicycle, first working with
the Internet nerd of the Twin Cities Stolen Bike Club,
a perfect stranger to locate the bike, and now he's
waiting to be picked up by the recovery specialist, another
complete stranger, to embark on a recon mission to retrieve
(43:59):
his stolen bike. How does something like this even happen?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I mean, initially yes, I was like, why are these
guys going to help me? Like for what?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
But after joining their group and following their posts, he
began to figure out why Robin got his bike stolen
on Monday. He began monitoring the Twin City Stolen Bike
group shortly after, and by the next Sunday there were
roughly an additional fifty more stolen bike listings. That's over
seven bikes a day, likely well over fifty grand for
the week, and that's only the ones that were reported
(44:39):
on the site. This was a criminal industry in action.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And it gets to the point, yeah, you know where
there's no deterrent currently.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And the criminals know it. So the recovery specialists arrived
at Robin's pad to pick him up.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Probably i'd say mid forties, a former MP in the army.
He a total total shaved head. He shows up and
you know, we introduce ourselves and whatnot, and we're in
the car and he had been texting me overnight and
he is shooting me pictures. He's like, you know, if
(45:24):
it uh, you know, if it comes right down to it,
I've got I've got some thief be gone. And he
shows me this canister which is a giant probably oh,
I would say, maybe this large sized canister of bear mace. Uh.
And he's got one of those I don't even want
what they're called, like those police batons that kind of
extend out when you whip it a little bit. I
(45:46):
don't know what they're called. Anyway, So he's got all
this gear and so we drive to the spot and
I'm kind of getting a little nervous because I'm like,
you know what we're bumping up close to the time.
I want to be there a little early, you know,
so we're not late type of thing. And he, you know,
backs out anyway, So we do. We get there early.
We park in a little back parking lot of a
(46:07):
nearby establishment. He gets out his bike, he saddles up,
puts all his gear in his pockets and whatnot. We
devise our scheme, which is to me to ultimately go
to the corner of the meetup spot. And he was
gonna circle around the block to see if he could
spot him coming, so he did. He couldn't find he
didn't see him initially in his first pass around the block.
(46:29):
I findal made it to the intersection at the meeting point.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
As the recovery specialist circled around, he saw another guy,
a big, burly bearded dude on a bike. The specialist
stopped him, apprised him of the situation and asked if
he'd help in case the thief made a run for it, and.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
The guy was like, yeah, sure, I'd be happy to help.
So no sooner had he done that. But I'm like,
you know, kaka, because I see the guy walking up
the street with my bike.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Thief had arrived, but Robin was stuck across the intersection
from the burglar with heavy traffic flowing through the street.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
So I can't do anything yet at this point.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
But the recovery specialist and his new burly sidekick were
near the culprit and they decided to make their move.
They confronted the thief and grabbed a hold of his
bike's handlebars. The excitement got the best of them and
Robin couldn't wait any longer, and.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
I dart out basically in the traffic, almost got hit
by a bar, you know, stunted, waited for the car
to go by, and then I just took off, you know,
full tilt, you know, running as fast as I can,
and had I wanted to, it could have just easily
been a straight up, you know tackle of the guy
(47:48):
straight down onto the concrete type of thing, you know,
felony type of assault on my part. But you know,
they both got hands on the handlebars, so I know
I'm in good company there. I know that, you know,
we've got it in my possessions, like, yep, that's mine.
And for ninety seconds, I'm just raging on this dude,
just in his face. He's taller than me by like
(48:11):
maybe two inches or so, probably has at this point
maybe only like ten five pounds on me. And I
literally just haven't raged like that since I was a
hormonal teenager, honestly.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
But the seller said that he hadn't stolen the bike,
he'd bought it off Craigslist.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
I mean, my heart was, my heart rate was elevated.
It was probably like beating over my head out of
my chest type of thing. And I, you know, like like,
I know your probation officer. I've already called him. You know,
he's having fun going back to jail type of thing.
But his eyes lit up as soon as I mentioned
(48:49):
his probation officer's name, and he did one of those
the classic like cartoon like the backwalking you know, just
kind of started backwalking like you'd walk into a room
and then you just kind of eyes wide and start backwalking,
and then all of a sudden, you know, he just
kind of turned around and just started scampering away, like
at a very fast pace.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
With his bike now in hand. Chasing after the thief
didn't make as much sense. The burly bearded guy had
groceries and had to get home. Robin's tire had a flat,
so he couldn't chase him down, and there was no
need to put the recovery specialist in a dangerous situation.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Like you know what, at this point, I think we
have enough to go on where well, you know, we'll
just nab him once they get in contact with the
cops and his po and we'll just get him that.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Way, Which leads us back to the question when is
it okay to take the law into your own hands.
In Robin's case, he performed his own investigation, found video
of the theft, identified the culprit, alerted his probation officer,
(49:58):
and tried to get the police involved all along the way.
When he couldn't get them to help, Robin joined individil
Ane group to seek justice on his own, and he
succeeded without breaking the law. Robin still hasn't heard back
from the police, and we tried contacting them ourselves with
no response. So when is it okay to take the
law into your own hands? The answer is, well, this
(50:20):
one time, We're going to leave that answer up to you.
But I think it's fair to say that the answer
looks a lot like the vigilante justice of Robin Hour
We recently spoke to Robin and he told us someone
tried to steal his back again shortly after the George
Floyd riots. They didn't succeed, but the attempt left his
chariot inoperable. Robin decided he's had enough and he's leaving
(50:42):
Minneapolis for greener pastures. We wish him and his BikeE
good luck.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced
by me Adriana Cortez and Patrick Carelchi for Inform Ventures. Now,
our entire archive of episodes is only available to our
backstage subscribers. To subscribe, visit redpild America dot com and
click support top of the menu. That's Redpilled America dot
com and click support at the top of the menu.
Thanks for listening.
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's time to tell our side of the story. But
we need your help. Please share, like, and subscribe to
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(00:26):
are behind the scenes podcast. Just visit Redpilled America dot
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dot com and click support in the topmenu.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
We originally broadcast this episode on September twentieth, twenty nineteen,
and we have a new update at the end. Enjoy
Vigilante Justice. I think we can all agree that the
right is pro law enforcement, but a new movement has
slowly been spreading across the nation, a trend to try
and lower our prison populations by raising our felony threshold,
(00:58):
and some cities are feeling the unintended consequences.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Crimes are on the rise in California, and researchers think
they know why.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Proposition forty seven is that voter approved initiative that downgraded
some crimes in order to free up more prison space.
Our social media feeds are filled with videos of people
committing petty crimes, with law enforcement often overwhelmed in big cities.
A question is arising even amongst supporters of our men
in blue, and that is when is it okay to
(01:25):
take the law into your own hands.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm Patrick Currelci and I'm Adriana Cortes.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Many on the political right place their
(02:16):
complete trust in our law enforcement. Trump voters in particular,
praise them at every opportunity. But there's a new trend
that's tying the hands of our men in blue, and
it's beginning to erode confidence in our government's ability to
make good on the order. Part of law and order,
progressive groups and even some on the right are pushing
to reduce prison populations in a way that has some
(02:37):
unintended consequences. Organizations like the SBLC has been pushing for
local government to raise the felony threshold, and some cities
are seeing a rise in property crime as a result.
With law enforcement's hands full fighting more serious crimes, citizens
and small business owners may begin to wonder when is
it okay to take the law into your own hands.
(02:59):
To find the answer, we follow the story of a
Minneapolis man's to get law enforcement to help him nab
a thief and how they're in action made him seek
out vigilante justice. Robin Hour doesn't sound like the kind
of guy that would become a vigilante. A numbers man
(03:21):
with a master's degree from a rural town, a graduate
with honors that went on to become a banker, But
after a series of frustrating exchanges with local law enforcement,
Robin would add vigilante to his resume as well. He
grew up in a small farming town called Hutchinson, Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It's about seventy miles straight west of Minneapolis Saint Paul
metro area.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
That's Robin. The town's population is now roughly fourteen thousand,
and it hasn't grown much since his sister, mom, dad,
and him called it home. His mother was a school
teacher for forty years and his father was a lifetime
state bureaucrat who hypercommuted the eighty five miles to work
in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I mean, it was pretty much that you know, Maybury
existence type of thing where me and my buddies to
get up in the daytime and cracking it, you know,
as soon as the sun came up, we had breakfast.
We were on our bikes and out all day and
came back for lunch and out till it got dark
and home for dinner type of thing.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He attended public school, and as a kid, Robin had
a thing for Ronald Reagan, going as far as sending
the president a.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Letter invited him to my birthday party as like a
five year old or something like that, and crazy enough,
you know, two years after that he actually sent a
reply to me.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
In grade school, Robin was a bit of a troublemaker,
but nothing major. He graduated high school with honors and
followed his future wife to Minnesota State University Mankato. He
started off studying finance, but later switched to economics.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I just didn't care for the finance guys, kind of
you know, the preppy dorks that I once was in
high school, but at the time just kind of rebelled
the against that. Plus I like the critical thinking aspect
and the math aspect of economic.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
In their spare time, him and his then girlfriend became
live music junkies.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
We traveled the country seeing music, and I think I've
seen over three thousand concerts in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The two were a bit of an odd couple. Robin
carried his fondness for Reagan's politics into his twenties, while
his girlfriend was, in his words, super liberal and had
the hairstyle to prove it.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Dreadhead and that whole bit. And I myself had long
hair down to my waistline.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
He graduated from college with honors in two thousand and
six and took a job as a research analyst at
the Minnesota Department of Transportation. But Robin came to the
decision that he wanted to pursue a career in alternative energy,
so he entered the master's program at the Colorado School
of Mines, a university devoted to engineering and Applied Science,
where he studied mineral economics. But when he finished the
(05:58):
program in May two thousand and nine, the country was
in the height of the financial crisis, making jobs even
in technical industries hard to come by.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
So my dreams of becoming an alternative energy analyst were
kind of dashed there, because it was a chicken in
an egg situation. Do you have someone in the industry
that you know, or do you have a lot of experience.
I had neither.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Like many during the Great Recession, Robin was forced to
find work where he could, so he turned to retail banking.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
They hired me on as a bank teller. So here
I am with a master's degree in in advanced economics,
essentially with six figures worth of debt, and I'm starting
at like ten bucks an hour as a bank teller,
not even in a main branch, mind you, in a
disconnected motor bank branch.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
But he rolled up his sleeves and within six months
he got a banker position, and within a year Robin
was elevated to a licensed banker. It began settling in
and in twenty eleven, on their ten year dating anniversary
to the day, Robin and his girlfriend got married. The
two moved back to Minnesota the following year, and Robin
(07:14):
began a new corporate job at a retail bank.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, like I said, bought a house, but you know,
things were leading to the next I knew the next
step with kids, and yeah, it just got to a
point where we really couldn't talk anymore about anything because
it always swung back to politics and me disagreeing with her,
and you know, my opinions were seen by her as
(07:40):
offensive to or demeaning to her opinion, as though I
wasn't not only just disagreeing, but thought I was somehow
making this huge slight against her ideology. And it just
clicked on me. I was like, not only is this
not going to work out between us, but this is
exactly what the left is like their ideology, the political
(08:03):
ideology is now their religion. And it was a total
eye opening moment.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Luckily when Robin came to this realization, there were no
kids in the picture if.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
We only had a house and a dog. Really, so
it was an amical breakup from you know, financial standpoint,
who basically just went our separate ways. Kind of odd thing.
You know, you spend end up spending thirteen odd years
with someone and you can divorce in the like twenty
eight days. I think it was.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So Robin was basically starting over, but this time loaded
up with a bit of a financial anchor.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You know. It was kind of, you know, kind of crazy.
We went from this house in the suburbs, the you know,
kind of picturesque little life too. Ultimately moved in with
my sister for a year, moved in with a couple
of college buddies for a year, paid off some of
the debt that I inherited from, you know, the relationship
and the wedding and all that, and then I moved
downtown here two years ago, in May of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Moving to downtown Minneapolis sparked a question for Robin. A
few years earlier, just two days after moving in with
his sister, Robin got into a car accident on his
way to work. Not having a lot of savings after
the divorce, he decided to lease a car.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
You know, so I got I leased a new car,
and I, after I started doing the math, I was like,
you know what with the rent or the downtown rental
parking spot, the insurance, the car payment, all of the gas,
the maintenance, everything. It was like as much as a
cheap apartment down here, seven eight hundred bucks a month.
So after the lease was up, I did. I moved downtown,
(09:35):
got myself a cheap apartment, and started this downtown experiment.
And I figured, hey, you know what, I'm going to
be working within ten blocks of my work. I'm going
to get rid of my car. I'm gonna, you know,
just give it a shot. Really, I'm gonna buy a
nice bike bike to work every day.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
All of his friends lived in and around downtown, so
they were just a twenty to thirty minute bike right away.
His sister was also closer, so he decided to hell
with a car payment.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So, yeah, I bought this nice bike as a gift
to myself, and you know, kind of tricked it out.
I guess I got it from a local. They call
it a co op. I guess it's called the Hub
bike co Op.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Even with its below zero winter temperatures, Minneapolis surprisingly has
one of the biggest bicycling cultures in America. It consistently
makes Bicycling magazines top five bike friendly cities, and in
twenty ten, the magazine even ranked it as the number
one bike friendly town in America, enraging the blue haired
male feminist cyclist of Portland.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
There's definitely a huge bike culture here. Some Minneapolis runs
along the Mississippi River. It was built up there in
the eighteen hundreds. It's not uncommon on the trail on
Saturday morning to see twenty thirty deep of all of
these guys decked out in their full on racing gear
paddage shorts, and they're twenty eight one hundred five thousand
(11:07):
dollars racing bikes, all in a pack. And it's, to
be honest with you, it's just it's obnoxious. I mean,
we have dedicated bike lanes downtown on pretty much every street.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Minneapolis is also super flat, the perfect terrain for bicycling.
It's also, along with fellow bike friendly cities Portland, Seattle,
San Francisco, New York City and others, a politically liberal
city where biking is more than just a mode of transportation,
it's a fashion statement.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah, there is a little bit of a haughtiness about it.
I mean, just this morning, I was riding next to
one of these guys on like those three wheel tricycle
recumbent style things, and when we came up to a light,
I just kind of leaned back and I asked him,
I'm like, say, how much does a bike like that
go for? I'm thinking of grabbing my dad one for
(11:58):
his birthday. He's like, well, this one's four thousand, but
you can get one for like eighteen hundred of them. Well,
maybe I'll think of a different option. But anyway, as
haughty as they are about their uber expensive bikes and
all of their equipment and helmet usage, and you know,
just the culture in it of itself, they are I
(12:20):
will say, very very loyal to one another's there's a
certain camaraderie that exists amongst them.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Robin hadn't had a bike in over a decade, so
he began doing some research and in August twenty seventeen,
he decided to buy a Jamus Renegade Exile bike from
the Hub Bike co Op with some aftermarket parts vendors, reflectors, pedals.
He was in about sixteen hundred dollars. For roughly a
year and a half, the bike was his primary source
(12:49):
of transportation without a hitch.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
I'd normally keep it inside, and it is inside overnight,
you know, more often than it isn't, you know, typically
every night I keep it inside, but this one night,
I just fell asleep on the couch for whatever reason,
didn't grab it. Went out the next morning and I
saw it. It was still connected to the street sign,
(13:15):
but it was lying on the ground the hell so,
you know, I looked at it, and the lock did
its job, but there was a big a dent in
the main frame of it, right, So now I'm thinking, well, great,
the structural integrity might be compromised. So I took it
in and ultimately we tested it, you know, some ping
(13:35):
tests and stuff like that, and they were convinced and
I was. My fears were assuage that it was still
legit and worth riding. So yeah, the bike had the
attempted theft, and while it didn't, you know, go as
planned for the thief, I'm convinced it messed up the
lock itself because the key thereafter to open it became
(14:02):
increasingly more and more sticky and problematic to open. And
flash forward to this year. I got done with work
one day and the key just wouldn't open. It was stuck, right,
So I tried everything, couldn't get it open. It ultimately
had to have a locksmith come and cut the u
lock off my bike so I could get it home,
and I was just using my backup cable lock at
(14:24):
the time until I could buy a new one.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
With the much less protective cable lock now in the mix.
Robin was playing a game of Russian Roulette with his
sixteen hundred dollars chariot, but he decided he'd get through
the week with his backup and buy a new one,
a much sturdier U shaped barlock, the coming weekend. But
little did he know that that simple decision would be
the first domino to drop on his road to becoming
(14:49):
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Speaker 2 (16:01):
Welcome back. I'm Adrianna Quartes So. Robin's bike survived a
theft attempt, but in the process, the lock on his
sturdy U shaped barlock became sticky and gradually began to
malfunction until it no longer worked. The locksmith had to
cut it off, and Robin decided to use his spare
cable lock until the following week and would he'd be
(16:21):
able to buy a new barlock. But little did he
know that this simple decision would be the first Domino
to drop on his road to becoming a vigilante. When
he got off work that Monday in mid July, Robin
rode his bike home and like every other day, pedaled
up to the parking meter kiosk outside his place.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
And so I was locked up to that. And I
get home at about five fifteen or whatever. So I
locked it up, went upstairs to make supper and listened
to some news and yeah, I loaded up my bag
to make my nightly trip to the gym, and went
outside probably about ten o'clock, and I looked and it
(17:05):
was gone. And I was like, wait, did I park
it somewhere else? I looked up and down the street,
and now it was gone, sure enough. And I looked
where it was and there was the cable lock on
the ground cut in half.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There are a lot of people who have experienced their
bike being stolen. If it happens to you as a kid,
it's likely your first taste of the real world. Something
you loved that is probably your first really expensive possession
has been snatched by someone within your community. Getting your
bike stolen as a child is really a coming of
age moment where you first realize that there are people
out there looking to take what you have, but as
(17:42):
an adult, the theft can have more practical consequences. This
was what Robin experienced.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Man I did the old man fist shake and curse
to the sky type of thing. You know, it's anger,
of course, because you never want to have anything taken
from you that you know shouldn't be. You're actually kind
of angered at You're upset with yourself a little bit too,
because you know better in a way, especially knowing what
I know about the city, just you know the crime
(18:10):
that exists around here. And plus I'd had different accessories
like lights stolen off my bike before in the past
since moving here. But then it, you know, it was
kind of this you know, despair, like, well, now I'm
going to walk to work type thing, and it's just
gonna be super inconvenient. How am I gonna get groceries
all that stuff? But yeah, the victimization feeling, you know,
you just feel that you know something of yours was
(18:32):
taken that shouldn't have been, and it just makes you
feel bad not only about the situation you're immediately in,
but just also about your community. You know, your city
that you know people like this live in the same
spot that you yourself have chosen willingly to move to
and live amongst. You know, whether this person was my
(18:54):
neighbor or not, or whether he lived in some other
portion of the city, it's still you know, he's part
of this community. Yeah, he doesn't give you good any
good feelings. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
After he gathered himself, Robin did what you're supposed to
do in these situations. He contacted law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
So yeah, I called the Minneapolis PD, called nine one one,
got a patrolman to come out. I'd say maybe thirty
minutes later, which is surprising that he was there that quick.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
He gave the cop the time range that it was stolen,
somewhere between five point fifteen PM and ten pm. Every
bike comes with a serial number, but like most people,
Robin hadn't recorded his, so he filed the police report
without it.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
The guy, the patrolman, who I knew, was just going
to take the report and then you put it over
to the stolen property group. I didn't really get much
of an explanation as to what's going to happen. I
asked him flat. I was like, what's the likelihood of
this getting returned? He says it's not likely, don't I
don't know if he said, I'd be shocked if you
(20:01):
get it back, but that's kind of how presented to
me in a way.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
In two thousand and seven, Minnesota was one of the
earliest states to substantially raise its felony threshold, doubling it
from five hundred to one thousand dollars. Because Robin put
about sixteen hundred dollars into the bike, even with its
devaluation over the course of two years, it was likely
right at the threshold for a felony in Minneapolis, but
(20:26):
Robin still didn't feel confident that the police department would
be much help, so he began his own citizen investigation.
It just so happened that right across the street from
his place was the Hennepin County Medical Center, and the facility,
just a year earlier had some upgrades.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
This particular side of the building has a flood an
entire bank of cameras, and I was like, you know what,
that camera right there looks like it's pointed directly at
where my bike is parked. Sure enough, it was, so.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
He asked the hospital for help. The security guard on
nightwatch told him to contact the head of security that
would be on site in the am, and.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
So I did following morning, reached out, let her know
what was going on and just requested if she could
find video, gave her all the details, what cross streets
it was between, you know, rough time of day.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And within a few hours, sure enough she found the
moment of the bike heist.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
She confirmed back that she had not only still images
of the thief, but you know, the actual video footage
of him stealing it, and gave me a pinpointed time.
Five forty seven pm is when it was stolen.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
The thief was brazen. He snatched the bike in broad
daylight about thirty minutes after Robin got home, and it
was all caught on camera. The problem was that the
hospital couldn't give Robin the footage of the theft.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
The hospital wasn't able to disclose it to me directly,
and so so I asked her, so, how do we
go about getting this footage into the police's hands. Can
you send it specifically to someone at MPD or do
they have to request it? Can I take it in
like a you know, a downloaded form and transport it
(22:21):
from you to them type of thing, and you know,
She basically said, well, they have to request it from us,
and she's like, don't worry, they do it all the
time for other types of crimes. I'm like, yeah, well,
you know, I'll believe it when I see it, which
this particular one.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Robin contacted the Minneapolis Police Department and let them know
about the video. Again, the MPD took the information, but
Robin didn't get the feeling that they were going to
move on it, so he pressed on with his investigation. Now,
each bike has a unique serial number on the frame,
kind of like your car's been number. Knowing that the
(23:02):
burglar was caught off video, Robin needed to go back
to the police department with this bike's actual serial number,
so that if the police put in the work and
found the thief, they could confirm that the bike in
his possession was in fact Robin's.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
I called up the hub the Bike co Op and
had to get my serial numbers so I could amend
my police report. And it was in the course of
talking with them, I asked, you know, what do you
guys recommend doing in a situation like that? Do you
have any tips, anything that I can do to be proactive,
because I didn't really have high hopes from MPD, knowing
(23:37):
what I know about their short staffing and stuff like that.
They basically said, well, good luck, man, but don't expect
MPD to do anything. That's just not going to happen.
But what you can do is join this Facebook group
called Twin Cities Stolen Bikes. I was like, there's a
(23:58):
Facebook group for stolen bikes. That was news to me.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You'd think the social media group would have maybe a
few dozen or possibly a few hundred members, but you'd
be wildly off in that estimation. The Facebook page of
Twin City Stolen Bikes now has over eight thousand, three
hundred members, and it's a vigilante group with one primary
purpose reconnecting bike owners with their stolen bikes. Bike theft
(24:27):
is a real problem nationwide because it hits that sweet
spot of being a big enough financial grab to make
it worth the thieves while, but not big enough to
spark the interest of law enforcement. It's also unique in
that the stolen property acts as the getaway vehicle. A
July twenty nineteen study published by Project five twenty nine,
a bike registry organization, found that over two million bikes
(24:51):
are stolen each year in North America, meaning one is
stolen every thirty seconds, making it a billion dollar problem.
Over the last two decades, bike thefts have doubled, and
one announ by The Oregonian in Portland found that only
two percent of reported bike thefts in their city resulted
in arrests. Many cities with flourishing bicycle cultures have bike
(25:13):
recovery Facebook groups, but at most they number in the
hundreds of members. Twin cities, stolen bikes membership bar exceeds
any other town, giving an indication of the extent of
the problem. In Minneapolis, law enforcement is obviously not curbing
the crime problem, and that's the dynamic that typically gives
rise to vigilante groups.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
So there's a huge array of these groups and it's
so interesting where they come up.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's Sarah M. Robinson, co author of the book Shadow Vigilantes,
how distrust in the justice system breeds a new kind
of lawlessness.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And for instance, San Francisco used to be unfriendly towards
their gay community, and so of the gay community formed
the Lava under Panthers right there with the Black Panthers,
and they took on the gay bashers. The police wouldn't
(26:11):
so they did. They got the grapemobile, they got I
don't know, like a VW van. They painted at lavender
and if somebody was in trouble, they'd get a call
and these guys would leap out with their pool sticks
and start whacking back, and suddenly the police were willing
to address it. You know, if somebody comes to a
(26:31):
bar and starts hassling some gay community member, they whip
out their pool sticks and they lay into them. Well,
suddenly the police are motivated. Or during the Civil Rights era,
there was a group called the Deacons of Defense and
Justice and they were vets who were back in the
(26:51):
Delta and they weren't going to tolerate the the klu
Klux Klan and the authorities siding with them, so they
stood up. These were Africanamericamerican veterans who were armed, they
knew how to use their weapons, and they just said no,
and what do you know, it worked. So there is
a lot of vigilanteism, and it's hard to say that
(27:14):
these people are necessarily wrong to do whatever it is
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
When law and order isn't fulfilling its obligation to the public.
Large vigilante groups like twin cities, stolen bikes organically form. Again,
Sarah and Robinson.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Think about all the vigilante movies. People care about justice.
So are they getting their eight thousand people just because
people care about stolen bikes? Or are they getting their
eight thousand people because people care about justice and this
is a way that they can participate in justice. And
I'm not saying which is which, but it seems eight
(27:49):
thousand is a very big number if we're just responding
to stolen bikes. But if what we're responding to is
this idea that I can do something about justice, well
those numbers start to make a lot more sense to me.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
The eight thousand plus membership is what also caught Robin's.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Eye, and that's what piqued my interest into thinking that
this is a larger problem than I had even realized.
So I did. I linked up to the group, spoke
with an administrator, went through the whole process of getting
enrolled or become a member or whatever. I posted my
(28:27):
bike with the image that I had posted all the
particulars and reached out to various people and just asked
him for tips and my friends and family and so forth.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
The feedback that he got was that he needed to
start monitoring all the resale apps and websites because the
thief was going to likely try and sell the stolen
merchandise in the very near future.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
And so I downloaded a bunch of resale apps and
started checking on Craigslist and Facebook, Marketplace, and I just
became part of my job. Basically, I did, you know,
did that two three times a day, morning, lunch break,
and in the evening just page through and I had
(29:10):
some free time.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
At the close of Tuesday, though he found nothing. He
searched again on Wednesday, still nothing. Then Thursday and Friday
came and went, no sign of his bike. Robin was
getting discouraged, and on top of that, he had no transportation.
He was forced to walk the roughly twenty blocks to
work him back, no doubt, his anger and frustration building
(29:34):
all along the way.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
And at this point, I'm thinking, you know, this is
not happening. You know, I was just kind of getting
dejected about it. I debated, you know, biting the bullet
and buying a new bike and putting down more money
and whatnot. But I just figured, you know, I'm gonna
give it at least a week. It's not meant to be.
After a week, then I'll start really thinking about it.
So I had I had done my like mid afternoon
(29:57):
scrolling for the day on Saturday, and I was just
hanging about watching TV. I don't even know what I
was doing really, when I get a a DM from
one of the administrators in the group.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The administrators of the Twin City Stolen Bike group are
the Internet nerds, and I mean that affectionately, glued to
the reselling.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Apps, saying hey, I see your bikes for sale on
Facebook Marketplace. I'm I'm going to establish a buy and
you know, get the ball rolling on that. And immediately
my heart starts pounding. I'm like, you know, kind of
like that nervous energy, you've got a big job interview,
you're about to take a girl out on a first
date type thing. I was just like, you've got to
be kidd by, you know, kind of get all jittery,
(30:36):
like I'd had too much caffeine.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
So Robin logs into Facebook Marketplace to check out the
bike listing that the nerd sent him, and sure enough,
it was his bike.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
That's it. I mean, yeah, there's some parts stripped off
of it, but that is it. I mean, because the
nice thing about my bike is that it is customized.
I mean it has blue bike cables, it has blue
handlebar wrap, it has a white white pedals, you know,
so it's very distinct from the stock model that I
could have just had.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Robin had a mix of emotions. He was elated that
he'd found his bike, but he was enraged at the
same time. Here is the guy trying to sell his bike,
the one he'd put a whopping sixteen hundred dollars into.
The heist was caught on tape. Yet the Minneapolis Police
Department was not helping. The injustice of it all ate
away at Robin, and a vigilante was born.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
It was like, I'm going to beat the mother. And
I am so happy that it's not been sold yet,
that it's still posted online, that I can still see
it out there, that it's not gone yet, because once
it's gone, I mean, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So Robin found it. Now all he had to do
was try to schedule a bye with the thief. But
this is where things got a little tricky. Trying to
contact the cellar. Facebook means that your real identity would
likely be given over to a person that has committed
a felony. He got an itchy finger and reached out
to the guy using his real Facebook identity. But then
(32:13):
Robin got wise and shifted tactics.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
So I see the ad and I reach out to
my close core buddies and my family, sister, brother in law,
and we all. I was like, okay, so this is
what we're going to do. Everybody established like a fictitious
profile if you can, if you're willing to do it,
and you don't want to use your own, the nice
thing is the TCSB. That's what I'm gonna refer to
(32:38):
him as the bike club. They had a bunch of
fictitious profiles created, so I logged in as that person
and started to try and make a buy of my own,
as well as my other buddies, many of whom live
out state, so they didn't care if they had a
fictitious profile or not. They just used their own. So
we all tried to establish a buy like, hey, is
(33:01):
this still for sale? How much you're offering? Can I
do a test drive type of questions stuff like that.
So we all started that process and I called MPD again.
Now by now I probably called them three four times
throughout the week, just you know, give him a couple
updates of what I knew, stuff like that about the video,
(33:23):
like hey, there's video footage, still frame, blah blah blah.
And I've got some friends on the force here, so
I was reaching out to them as well, and they're like, oh, man,
you're kidding. You got this info. That's great, y'all reach
out to the lieutenant or whatever in the property crimes group.
But nobody ever got back to me. Nobody ever called
(33:44):
me back.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Now, remember Robin hadn't been given access to the video
of the heightst captured by the hospital, so he couldn't
be sure if the guy selling his bike was the
same guy that stole it. The seller looked in his
mid twenties, white guy, tallish, maybe six foot one, broad shoulders.
He had the frame of a big dude, but looked
like he wasthering away. So he began to dig deeper
(34:09):
into the cellar to see what he could find.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
So I've got some technologist buddies as well, and they
started nerding out on this guy who was selling it
on Facebook, and they started looking him up in criminal databases,
and lo and behold, this guy who was selling it
was using his actual real name. And how do we
(34:33):
know that because we found him on probation in Hennepin
County for theft, and we matched up the photos, same name,
same face, dead match.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Posting a stolen bike under a real name is so
easily trackable. This gives a good indication of how Afreid
Minneapolis bike These are of local law enforcement. Translation, they
have zero fear. So Robin took it upon himself to
apply some press. Sure his tech friends helped him track
down the thief's probation officer. Robin tried calling, but it
(35:09):
was the weekend, so no one picked up. He left
a voicemail, then emailed the thief's Facebook profile to the
probation officer along with the stolen bike, listing this thief
stole from the wrong guy. Finally, late Saturday afternoon, the
seller responded, but he wouldn't lock in a time and
location with Robin. Day turned into night, and Robin continued
(35:30):
to try to schedule a meet up with the seller,
but the thief was being a little cagey, and there
was good reason. Robin made an early mistake. He originally
reached out to the cellar using his actual Facebook profile.
The thief possibly realized that the owner was one of
the guys that inquired about the bike, making everyone suspicious
to him. Either way, the seller wasn't locking in on
(35:51):
a time and location to meet him. Robin's early excitement
may have jeopardized the entire recon operation, so he had
to take a step back and play it cool, much
more nonchalant. He tried contacting the cellar again using the
fake Facebook accounts.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
I was like, hey, you know, it's kind of getting late,
because now by now we've been pushing him from like
five five thirty at nights about nine nine thirty at night.
I was like, you know, we can we can still
meet up tonight if you want. I'm free, I've got
nothing to do type of thing. He's like, he gave
me some random cross street that he was nearby, but
no real set time, Like, hey, let's meet at this
(36:29):
point in time type of deal.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Robin turned to the cops again for help.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I called MPD back and I was like, hey, this
my bike's being listed right It's on sale for marketplace
right now. And they basically said that all that they
could do was wait, you know, I would have to
set up a buy if I could, and then contact
them and within like a thirty minute window and they
(36:54):
would show up at the meeting point to help me
recover the bike. I was like, okay, well, you know,
I'll try. I mean, all i've got right now is
a cross street but no set time type of thing.
And they're like, well, we can't do it unless you've
got a setup time, you know, very specific type of thing.
(37:17):
Mind you, this is a Saturday night and there was
some block party going on, so they were short, shorter staffed.
I mean I called back into the precinct I think
two or three times that night, and it was the
same Kuy each time. He's like, listen, you know, I
know this sucks type of thing, but you know, unless
you've got something concrete, I can't send anybody out for
(37:38):
you type of deal. I'm like, okay, well what time
you know? And plus they've got a ten o'clock recovery
cutoff time.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Meaning the property recovery department closes at ten pm.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Which makes sense safety wise, so we were bumping up
against that time frame. So I just, you know, kind
of casually, almost indifferent. DM the seller back, said hey,
you know what, it's getting late I'm free all day Sunday.
Let me know what time works, best type of thing,
I'm available whatever. So at this point, you know, I'm
kind of in that mode of like, this could not
(38:09):
go well, this could be gone in the morning, but
you know, I'm gonna be hopeful.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Vigilante groups like Twin City Stolen Bikes tend to attract
people with different expertise. There's first the ringleader, the guy
that starts the group again Sarah and Robinson.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And somewhere in the organization is somebody who has the
skills to make it happen, because it's never doesn't seem
very hard to get people to help, but it does
seem to hard to get the person who says, let's
make this happen and this is how it's done.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Then others begin to fill rolls around the first mover.
In the case of Twin City Stolen Bikes, there are
the Internet nerds, like the guy who contacted Robin first
telling him that he found the bike on the Facebook marketplace.
Then there's the guys that like to do the field work,
the ones that are actually physically recovering the bike. Let's
call them the recovery specialists. Robin was contacted by one
(38:59):
of these specialists on Saturday night, an next serviceman that
boasts seventy five bike recoveries. The specialist actually knew the
guy that stole Robin's bike.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
He texts me after he was off work. He's like,
don't worry, man, I know this guy. I've seen him before.
I know his friends. I've recovered bikes off of them before.
They're total junkies. They won't remember me. I know his buddy,
and he's getting off work soon, and I'm gonna go
swing by his place of work and see if maybe
(39:31):
he leads me to so and so. Right, So I
was just floored that this guy not only was gonna
help me out, but he knew the thief, and he
knew the thief's buddies by face right, because he recovered
bikes off him before. So he's texted me. He goes
to this guy's work ways for him to get off.
(39:52):
He actually he's so brazen. He goes up to this
guy and he's like, hey, Jack or whatever, John, whatever
his name was, And the guy had just kind of
ignored him, and he was like he was just about
to not off, dude, because these guys are all junkies
and just fixing their habit basically, so he didn't even
recognize them, so he followed him. He didn't have any success,
(40:15):
but he then started his own by attempt later that night.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
But Saturday ended with no set time to meet the seller.
By the next morning, there was still no word.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I do my normal Sunday Sunday thing. Didn't go to
church that morning, just wanted to be online and ready,
you know, waiting and everything. So and I shot out
a few messages and then, you know, I don't want
to be too early, like eight nine in the morning
type of deal, So I waited a little bit, ten
thirty eleven. Hey man, let's meet up by the biking
(40:45):
stadium type of deal, you know, looking to buy it.
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
But the week had taken its toll on Robin. The
stress of losing the bike, then finding it, hunting down
info on the PURP, trying to get the cops involved,
attempting to set up a bye time. The rollercoaster of
it all wore him out a bit, so he began
to veg out on a PBS documentary, but just as
he was fully engrossed into some social biology film, he
(41:10):
gets a notification on his phone. The internet nerd from
Twin City Stolen Bike sent him a message.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And he goes, hey, you realize there's been a DM
back from the cellar right.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
I was like, oh more after the break? Do you
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Speaker 1 (41:43):
Welcome back. So Robin was worn out from his rollercoaster
of a week trying to get back his bike, so
he began to veg out on a PBS documentary. But
just as he was fully engrossed into some social biology film,
he gets a notification on his phone. The internet nerd
from the Twin City Stolen Bike sent him a message.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
And he goes, hey, you realize there's been a DM
back on the from the cellar right. I was like,
oh crap, you know, so I quick get back on
and the guy is trying to pull the old Uh yeah,
I'd love to sell it to you type of thing.
I'll even drop twenty five bucks off of it because
the back tires flat it's like, okay, sure it is. Yeah,
(42:26):
it makes sense. He's doing this before. He doesn't want
to meet up with some random and have me go
on a test drive and then walk off with it,
you know, or bike off with it, so he flattens
the tires.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Robin gets the cellar to lockdown a time. They'll meet
at the intersection of Portland Avenue in Franklin Street, in
front of the Halal meat Market, the heart of South Minneapolis,
near the border of the Somali part of town.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Not the safest of neighborhoods down that way.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Robin wasn't going to blow it this time. He was
going to play a cool, not too anxious. The thief
was no doubt experienced at this game. Robin was new
to it, but learning quickly.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And again I was kind of casual about it. I
was like, yeah, I can meet you up maybe in
two hours something like that. How does that sound? You know.
I just wanted to be you know, you know, appease
him more or less, just say one gets suspicious. And
so then I got the time and I got the location.
So I hit up the recovery specialists and he's he's like, okay, perfect,
(43:28):
I got to go home to get my bike. I'll
come by and scoop you up, and then we'll go
and get there early so we can so we can
do this. I was like, all right, perfect.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Let's take a step back for a moment and just
marvel at this situation. Here's Robin, a newly christened vigilante,
searching for his sixteen hundred dollars bicycle, first working with
the Internet nerd of the Twin Cities Stolen Bike Club,
a perfect stranger to locate the bike, and now he's
waiting to be picked up by the recovery specialist, another
complete stranger, to embark on a recon mission to retrieve
(43:59):
his stolen bike. How does something like this even happen?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I mean, initially yes, I was like, why are these
guys going to help me? Like for what?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
But after joining their group and following their posts, he
began to figure out why Robin got his bike stolen
on Monday. He began monitoring the Twin City Stolen Bike
group shortly after, and by the next Sunday there were
roughly an additional fifty more stolen bike listings. That's over
seven bikes a day, likely well over fifty grand for
the week, and that's only the ones that were reported
(44:39):
on the site. This was a criminal industry in action.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And it gets to the point, yeah, you know where
there's no deterrent currently.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And the criminals know it. So the recovery specialists arrived
at Robin's pad to pick him up.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Probably i'd say mid forties, a former MP in the army.
He a total total shaved head. He shows up and
you know, we introduce ourselves and whatnot, and we're in
the car and he had been texting me overnight and
he is shooting me pictures. He's like, you know, if
(45:24):
it uh, you know, if it comes right down to it,
I've got I've got some thief be gone. And he
shows me this canister which is a giant probably oh,
I would say, maybe this large sized canister of bear mace. Uh.
And he's got one of those I don't even want
what they're called, like those police batons that kind of
extend out when you whip it a little bit. I
(45:46):
don't know what they're called. Anyway, So he's got all
this gear and so we drive to the spot and
I'm kind of getting a little nervous because I'm like,
you know what we're bumping up close to the time.
I want to be there a little early, you know,
so we're not late type of thing. And he, you know,
backs out anyway, So we do. We get there early.
We park in a little back parking lot of a
(46:07):
nearby establishment. He gets out his bike, he saddles up,
puts all his gear in his pockets and whatnot. We
devise our scheme, which is to me to ultimately go
to the corner of the meetup spot. And he was
gonna circle around the block to see if he could
spot him coming, so he did. He couldn't find he
didn't see him initially in his first pass around the block.
(46:29):
I findal made it to the intersection at the meeting point.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
As the recovery specialist circled around, he saw another guy,
a big, burly bearded dude on a bike. The specialist
stopped him, apprised him of the situation and asked if
he'd help in case the thief made a run for it, and.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
The guy was like, yeah, sure, I'd be happy to help.
So no sooner had he done that. But I'm like,
you know, kaka, because I see the guy walking up
the street with my bike.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Thief had arrived, but Robin was stuck across the intersection
from the burglar with heavy traffic flowing through the street.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
So I can't do anything yet at this point.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
But the recovery specialist and his new burly sidekick were
near the culprit and they decided to make their move.
They confronted the thief and grabbed a hold of his
bike's handlebars. The excitement got the best of them and
Robin couldn't wait any longer, and.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
I dart out basically in the traffic, almost got hit
by a bar, you know, stunted, waited for the car
to go by, and then I just took off, you know,
full tilt, you know, running as fast as I can,
and had I wanted to, it could have just easily
been a straight up, you know tackle of the guy
(47:48):
straight down onto the concrete type of thing, you know,
felony type of assault on my part. But you know,
they both got hands on the handlebars, so I know
I'm in good company there. I know that, you know,
we've got it in my possessions, like, yep, that's mine.
And for ninety seconds, I'm just raging on this dude,
just in his face. He's taller than me by like
(48:11):
maybe two inches or so, probably has at this point
maybe only like ten five pounds on me. And I
literally just haven't raged like that since I was a
hormonal teenager, honestly.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
But the seller said that he hadn't stolen the bike,
he'd bought it off Craigslist.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
I mean, my heart was, my heart rate was elevated.
It was probably like beating over my head out of
my chest type of thing. And I, you know, like like,
I know your probation officer. I've already called him. You know,
he's having fun going back to jail type of thing.
But his eyes lit up as soon as I mentioned
(48:49):
his probation officer's name, and he did one of those
the classic like cartoon like the backwalking you know, just
kind of started backwalking like you'd walk into a room
and then you just kind of eyes wide and start backwalking,
and then all of a sudden, you know, he just
kind of turned around and just started scampering away, like
at a very fast pace.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
With his bike now in hand. Chasing after the thief
didn't make as much sense. The burly bearded guy had
groceries and had to get home. Robin's tire had a flat,
so he couldn't chase him down, and there was no
need to put the recovery specialist in a dangerous situation.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Like you know what, at this point, I think we
have enough to go on where well, you know, we'll
just nab him once they get in contact with the
cops and his po and we'll just get him that.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Way, Which leads us back to the question when is
it okay to take the law into your own hands.
In Robin's case, he performed his own investigation, found video
of the theft, identified the culprit, alerted his probation officer,
(49:58):
and tried to get the police involved all along the way.
When he couldn't get them to help, Robin joined individil
Ane group to seek justice on his own, and he
succeeded without breaking the law. Robin still hasn't heard back
from the police, and we tried contacting them ourselves with
no response. So when is it okay to take the
law into your own hands? The answer is, well, this
(50:20):
one time, We're going to leave that answer up to you.
But I think it's fair to say that the answer
looks a lot like the vigilante justice of Robin Hour
We recently spoke to Robin and he told us someone
tried to steal his back again shortly after the George
Floyd riots. They didn't succeed, but the attempt left his
chariot inoperable. Robin decided he's had enough and he's leaving
(50:42):
Minneapolis for greener pastures. We wish him and his BikeE
good luck.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced
by me Adriana Cortez and Patrick Carelchi for Inform Ventures. Now,
our entire archive of episodes is only available to our
backstage subscribers. To subscribe, visit redpild America dot com and
click support top of the menu. That's Redpilled America dot
com and click support at the top of the menu.
Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Adryana Cortez
Patrick Courrielche
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