street justice

Bike Thief Tackled Attempting to Steal Bike, Gets His Own Bike Stolen in Return

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Our pals at the Get Outdoors Blog alert us to this video of a woman administering a sweet dose of street justice to a would be bike thief:

Kristen Bell, creative associate at WCG, dished out some justice when a would be bike thief outside her  offices in San Francisco tried to ride off with a colleague's bike.

They didn't kick the shit out of the thief or chase him down, which struck me as unfortunate when I first saw the video.  However, that ended up being a smart idea, as the thief apparently pulled a knife on security guards as he was running away.

But not all hope of avenging the crime was lost, as The Bay Citizen brings us this:

Bell said that before trying to steal the WCG intern's bike, the thief apparently had chained his own bicycle to a sign outside the building. During the courtyard scuffle, he dropped the key to his lock.

The key ended up in the hands of building security guards, who happened to notice the improperly locked bicycle. They unlocked the bike and confiscated it, Bell said.

The whole ordeal is beautiful to watch unfold.  Action starts about 25 seconds in:

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

"Mob of Folks" Go After Bobby the Bike Thief

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

As we've talked about in the past, Pop's Bar is straight-up the worst place to leave your bike due to their neighboring bike thief.  Well, GoatLeg over at SF Fixed “riled up a fucking mob” and got his stolen parts back:

Hello, all. Tonight me front wheel was stolen while locked up outside of the Dovre club at 26th/Valencia. I was inside while some friends were outside smoking while some random local asked whose bike it was this guy stole the front wheel from. They knew it was my bike, and the local told them it was a latino guy in a red pickup truck with a black topper over the bed. Immediately we knew it was this guy Bobby who lives around the corner from Pop's. All my friends came in and told me what happened, I ran out with all my shit expecting to see him outside. Of course he wasn't there, so I ran back in, got all my homies together and riled up a fucking mob of folks 100% poised to get my wheel back. So, we all ran down to the corner of 24th/York, a few of them went in to Pop's to get some beer and not be directly involved in what was about to go down.

So from there, four or five of my friends surrounded Bobby's truck (the same red pickup with the black topper) while I ran up to the house we knew he lived at. I wasn't 100% sure which of the two doors was his, so I rang each bell. His neighbor opened here door almost immediately. I asked, “Does Bobby live here?” and she said “No” and poinetd to the other door on the left, at which point I looked back at my friends who were opening up the tailgate to Bobby's truck and grabbed my wheel out. I turned to his neighbor and said, “Cool, well your neighbor is a bike thief and we're just taking my wheel back”. As soon as I turned away I started off down the stairs and one of the neighbors yelled, “What the fuck are you doing to that truck??!” I took off running as fast as I possibly could, while my friend had my wheel in his had and everyone scattered.

Of course, stealing the wheel back isn't enough.  GoatLeg is taken his photo (above) and is “going to make it known that this guy is a known bike thief, and that I know where he lives and that he needs to stop doing this shit, or he will pay. I fullheartedly think this a step in the right direction to get this shit stopped.”  Going to poster the neighborhood?  He'll pay?  It looks like Bobby is at the end of his rope and people are done waiting to SFPD to do something.

I can't imagine this will end well.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: