Gillum says he and his friends decided to confront Craig alone after the police told him they might not show up. Instead, they met up with Craig first, then asked him “stupid questions” for about 40 minutes while they waited for the police to arrive. When officers failed to show, Gillum says he simply changed his plan.
“I thought, ‘I can beat him up. F**k it,’” says Gillum. He then went to a nearby bank — Gillum told Craig he needed to get the cash — and asked a teller to call mall security. Finally, Gillum and crew went out to confront the alleged thief. Luckily, says Gillum, the standoff didn’t result in violence.
“I’m glad it didn’t come down to it, but we were ready for a fight,” he says. “I had running shoes on. I had thick Carhartt pants on. I wore a sweatshirt to look bigger. I even grew out my beard to look tougher/older. Again, we had no plans to break the law, but we were prepared for the worst.”
Though Craig never admitted to actually stealing the bike — just to selling property he knew was stolen, a crime for which he was arrested — Gillum says he believes Craig was the real thief.
“While the guy is claiming that he bought it on Craigslist, I am almost certain he is the original thief,” says Gillum. “I have no hard evidence of this, which is why he’s being charged for ‘Involuntary Trafficking of Stolen Property’ up in Seattle. He’s not being charged in Portland…
“However, let’s face the facts: he lives a few blocks away from where it was stolen. We passed his car on the freeway on the way to the meet-up. He had a $2,500 bike that was stolen on 8/3/12, and he posted this bike on 8/7/12 (first post I saw, but he may have done one earlier… he put one up on the 10th as well). He is claiming that in a four-day period, he bought a bike on Craigslist for dirt cheap. He then decides to drive his new bike to Seattle and sell it?”
In the end, Gillum just hopes that his experience will help dissuade others from stealing bicycles.
“I want thieves to be afraid of people like me,” he says. “I’m not a victim, and that’s because I stood up for myself. Don’t mess with cyclists.”
Update: For more information on Gillum’s story, see his Reddit post here. Also, it turns out that so-called Craig had a number of other bikes loaded onto his car prior to his arrest. Check out the photos to see if any of these bikes belong to you or anyone you know.
