This Bike Thief Was Caught in a Viral Video – and Then Caught By Local Reporters

Usually being a local news reporter means a lot of mundane traffic accidents, court cases and cats stuck in trees — but sometimes, you get to be a viral internet hero.

The Fox 4 team from Dallas-Fort Worth suddenly found themselves the stars of their own story when they were doing a story about college student named Taylor Rector whose bike was stolen, and then bumped into the bike thief on the sidewalk. They didn’t hold back on the flair, either.

“At West Oak Coffee, Taylor Rector’s perfected the pack-steam-pour,” said reporter Zahid Arab in the segment’s dramatic intro. “It pays the bills for the triathlete’s true passion: swim-bike-run.”

God, I love local news reporters and their earnest puns.

Taylor was training for her next triathlon, but around 8 pm on March 24, she nearly suffered a huge setback. Security cameras caught a guy stealing her $2,000 bike from the coffeeshop, with clear images of his lanky frame, stringy blond hair, shoes and backpack. The video of the footage spread through the local community on Facebook, until Fox 4 decided to run a story on it.

However, while Fox 4 were out interviewing people near the coffee shop, a perceptive photojournalist spotted a guy on the street who looked exactly like the guy in the video. The reporters ran up to him, put him on camera and asked him what he thought about people stealing bikes.

“I think that that’s something people shouldn’t do,” the culprit said, clearly realizing he’d been caught but managing to pretend he was just a concerned bystander the whole time. “I sure hope that people don’t make drunk mistakes like that often.”

Aha! Nobody said anything about drunkenness, sir. This is journalism at its finest. I’m only half kidding.

He eventually walked the camera crew back to his apartment, handed over the bike that had magically appeared there for some reason, and took off.

Taylor was delighted to get her bike back and relieved that the ordeal was over. She still plans to press charges, though — no spontaneous forgiveness for “doing the right thing” for that loser.