Sick of prostitutes and their customers infesting their communities, Oklahomans are videobusting them and posting the results on YouTube. This one catches a Lowe’s delivery driver picking up a hooker in a residential neighborhood and retiring to the back of his truck for a playdate. It’s the work of a one man citizen journalism campaign by Brian Bates, who’s been at it in OK since 1996. It seems in the 12 year he’s been at it, he hasn’t run out of material. Full vid inside.
Maybe he had a harder time getting material than I thought. Several commenters point to this arrest report on The Smoking Gun indicating Bates was arrested in ’05 for paying prostitutes to have sex with their customers, gave stage directions, and told them how to detect undercover cops, all in order to make his tapes better to sell to the national media. Is it the curse of every vigilante to be drawn to the dark side?
Update 2: Bates claimed the charges were false. He admitted to paying the girls to tell their stories, but not to have sex and stage encounters. Charges were dropped to misdemeanors. Bates contends the charges were trumped by the DA’s office up in retaliation for him catching police brutality on tape and it making national headlines. Bates also started a campaign to vote out DA Wes Lane, who subsequently lost his seat in the next election.
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I stand corrected…it should have been “Lowes knows Johning”
@bria:
The drug dealer is probably packing some heat. If he isn’t his supplier certainly is.
The point about going after these people is to feel self-righteous with minimum downside.
@Grive:
Or as a wise man once said:
“Why is it illegal to sell what is completely legal to give away?”
Man why didn’t he get that one walking in the foreground?
This kind of thing bothers me “Our wives can’t walk to the grocery store because of the hookers?” Really? Are the hookers trying to pick up his wife?
This guy is the wrong kind of justice.
This video is actually pretty old , i live in this neighborhood ( the video of the guy having sex while the track team runs past , my daughter is one of those girls) what Brian does is quite appreciated by those of us who live in this area .
I live 4 blocks from the school yet my daughters cannot walk there , they cannot walk across the street to the store , they cant even play in the front yard because men will circle the block , stop and try to talk to them and some girls have reported men offering them money or flashing them .
i dont live in a slum ,our house is nice and the school is awesome so moving isnt an option .
And the whole “he set up the videos ” was proven false , it was a smear campaign by our former DA as retaliation for the video of the police beating one “john” .
Oklahoma wants to think it is the buckle. It’s the tail end of the Bible belt, with more than enough frauds that have slid to the bottom, such as Oral Roberts and more. Neocons rule the state. Just watch the results of the upcoming presidential election. This state is so red, neither are actually campaigning here because they already know the results.
I live 4 blocks from the school yet my daughters cannot walk there , they cannot walk across the street to the store , they cant even play in the front yard because men will circle the block , stop and try to talk to them and some girls have reported men offering them money or flashing them.
@BadBadKitty: EW!
OK, so definitely not a non-existent problem.
I don’t want hookers on my block or people having sex in trucks outside my house either. I understand this on that level, but perhaps some lawyer here can explain why it’s constitutional to pass laws that two consenting adults cannot exchange money for sex when they can exchange money for, say, tomatoes.
Adults can’t go to the store, but in the first shot two kids seem to be playing just fine. Your daughter can safely run in the area with the track team, but couldn’t walk to school with a group?
To be honest, the best way to combat this stuff in my mind is to get out in groups, take back those corners as places for families. John’s won’t pick up working girls when there are kids playing hopscotch being watched by parents.
Ya know that chunky whore could actually be the guys wife/girlfriend and they were doing some role playing.
Ok, only about 0.1% chance of being correct. But if I was Lowe’s guy I would have introduced the camera guy to my long time girlfriend.
@Amy Alkon: because tomatoes aren’t particularly fun…and these are laws against fun
D-
@kc2idf: Oklahoma is the buckle of the Bible Belt. It surprises me in no way to find that bands of vigilantes are imposing their morals on others in this area.
In that case, them being so holy and all, shouldn’t there be no pimpin’, whorin’, drinkin’ or fightin’? Anywhere?! I mean, being all so holy ‘n all…
@Michael Belisle: We have.
What a Lowe life. Keep on truckin’ baby…
@Corporate-Shill: Pretty much. The lowe’s driver is kind of a moron. Deny to heck and back. Works for the government. . Especially when the “evidence” is reduced to someone picking someone else, both going to the back of the trailer, and both having their pants down sometime later. If that constituted a crime, we’d all be criminals by the time we reached adulthood… or went to the pool with friends.
Without his confession after the act, the driver could have even ended serving a nice hot lawsuit to Master (videographer) Bates
@Grive:
Yep. I remember parking when I was a teenager. Didn’t mean she was a whore. Well she might have been, ’cause that is the reason I went out with her, but I didn’t pay her money (unless you count popcorn at the movie as some sort of payment).
Why does it matter if there are kids of wives nearby. Its not like they are having sex in front of them and just watching them walk by hurts nobody
OMG I just realized that people have sex in their homes ALL the time while kids and wives are walking by, how awful, they should all be arrested
@linbey: The problem is that some johns might proposition to girls who are not prostitutes, under the assumption that any women in there are one. Works the same way on the other direction.
That, and illegal prostitution tends to attract, shall we say, unsavory kinds of people.
Don’t demonize the prostitute. Demonize the situation that made her choose prostitution (not said very well, but you know what I mean. maybe.)
And to all of those misogynistic assholes saying that dating is prostitution, welcome to 2008. Women like sex now too!
If you don’t live on the south side of OKC then you probably don’t know how bad it is here. Its not like its a nice place that happens to have a few hookers walking around. Its the hookers, the drugs, the pimps, the gangs, and the nasty Johns that they attract. Brian Bates is awesome, he’s one of the few people out there trying to make south OKC a better place.
And the charges against him did not stick because they were a bunch of lies. It was all because of the former DA Wes Lane who tried to stop Bates because he filmed two OKC police officers beating the shit out of a john while he was filming. Lane got voted out of office, and Bates is still out there with his camera.
@CptnNemo: You obviously havent watched all the videos , in several there are children in yards and parents outside and they pick the girl up in plain site .
The reason my daughter could run with the track team and not walk with a group is this , she attends a charter school , she has few if any classmates that live nearby .
After i alerted the principal to that video he had the girls coach follow in a car ( which she should have been doing all along)
Luckily i live about a mile from the worst area , but i have actually lived there years ago and it was insane to walk to the store , im not hot by any means and i dont dress provocative but cars would stop one after another trying to pick me up . Its humiliating and unless im waving and flashing my thong they shouldnt try to pick me up.
It is also not just sex in cars that was so bad ,we found needles , crack pipes and condoms left in our yard and alley .
Im not against prostitution , but when they are exposing children to theyre lifestyle and bringing dangerous perverts into my neighborhood , then i have a problem with it .
@BadBadKitty: Do you have a link?
@BadBadKitty: Found something [www.chicagotribune.com]
My husband and I looked at some of the other videos on YouTube and also checked out his site- while this guy definitely has nads, the “Johns” who pick these young women up and then get sex for $20, enlist 2 at once for oral sex or hop into their backseat with a hooker in a cemetary while people are 50 feet away paying respects….NOW THAT’S BALLSY!!I have to say I am on Bates’s side- I wouldn’t want this crap in my neighborhood either.
Best Lowe’s story ever
great, now I have this to think about every time any deliveries is late…that my item saw the deliveryman have sex…or had sex on it.
This guy deserves to lose his job (not because he was on the clock and using a company vehicle) simply because of his taste in women. I’m sure there must be a clause in the companies HR Manual…that makes it legal for them to fire an employee for “having sex with a something that ugly”.
Sadly, this is moment in his life that his friends and family will never let him live down
We just posted ringtone-ready audio from the video over on Entertonement.
i love the “end school zone” sign shot…
@Grive: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Prostitution, decriminalized, makes it easier to protect sex-workers, easier to screen for disease, and generally less destructive. You can still have street-walkers arrested, etc. And if the sex-workers were declaring income and paying taxes, that would be to the benefit of society.
That said, I can’t blame the video guy for wanting to clean up his neighborhood. I’m glad he starts off by disclaiming that its not Lowe’s fault. I think that companies are often blamed for the acts of idiot employees (although companies certainly have a responsibility to try to screen and train employees).
Okay, I had to jump in since I am the topic of conversation. Not to highjack the thread, but to address a couple of things and be gone. No back and forth, you can do that through my site or YouTube.
First; I’m getting a great kick out of being on the Consumerist.com. I love this site and visit it often! Though I’m not sure exactly how my activism fits in a consumer focused blog – O’well.
Some of you should note that I am very open about my opinion that certain forms of prostitution should be decriminalized and not a burden on our limited resources. Specifically, prostitution that is 100% consensual, private and unorganized. Basically, one woman with a website working in an outcall basis (no pimp, no brothel, no agency, no curb crawling and no neon signs or fliers). What two adults do in the bedroom COMPLETELY behind closed doors is none of mine or the government’s business.
Second; My arrest and subsequent charges were years ago and were the direct result of my very outspoken nature against then D.A. Wes Lane. Conveniently enough I had a pretty cozy relationship with both the police and the D.A. for many years. That is until I videotaped two white police officers beating the crap out of an unarmed black man with a white female prostitute. I was even able to show publicly that D.A. Lane removed part of the audio from the tape (I had made a copy). The audio in question had the police officer threatening to kill the black man – before he had pacifyingly resisted arrest.
After the D.A. lost his bid for re-election (see [www.voteoutweslane.com]) he paid for a focus group to see what happened. The #1 reason was bad press (he openly referred to me as the ‘media snitch’) and #2 was mine and another individual’s malicious prosecution. Keep in mind, this was a D.A. who referred to himself in public as the “Minister of Justice.”
He himself dropped and refiled the case against me three times to avoid a trial but continued the financial and mental burden upon me. After he was voted out of office no other D.A. had any interest in pursuing the case and all 9 felonies were dropped (up to 240 years in prison) if I would take a deferred for – get this – obstructing a police officer, by not turning in a videotape that was shot at an unknown date, unknown location and had an unknown content. And by not turing in this tape the police did not have the opportunity to review it for criminal charges against whomever was in the tape. They were in such a hurry to get the case over with they didn’t even want me to come up with a tape or any details of one. The plea saved me at least another $50,000 in legal fees and will be removed from my record. Not once did I stop my activism during my case. The many documentaries and appearances I have made since then do not even mention the case as it has been deemed nonsense and vindictive. See [www.okgazette.com] for a good overview of the case up to the point it was written.
As for my activism, it draws praise and criticism alike. If I wanted to pat myself on the back I would have chosen feeding the children or saving the whales, but I figured those bases were covered. So, I choose something that most people shy away from because they do not have thick enough skin to tackle.
My goal is not the eradication of street prostitution as that is an unrealistic goal. My goal is to keep the topic of prostitution in the hearts and minds of the community and its leaders. To spur an ongoing dialogue and to dispel the many myths that perpetuate street level prostitution.
My way of doing things is over the top because I seek the loudest voice I can. I am competing with Hollywood, video games, TV and an MTV generation who think “Pretty Woman” is a documentary.
Street prostitution is not victimless.
If anyone else just walked up to a commercial vehicle and tried/succeeded at swinging open any of the doors on it that’d be considered breaking/entering.
What makes you think I got special consideration? The supervisor on scene obviously didn’t want to cooperate with me. If he could have found fault with anything I did he would have pursued it. In this day and age of Law and Order, CSI, etc. on the TV, many people draw wrong conclusions on the law. That is one reason I pursued a criminal justice degree – to separate fact from fiction. If you watch many of my videos you’ll see I often open the car doors of the “Johns” – this is not illegal either and several Johns have tried to have me charged. It simply does not meet the ‘elements of the crime.’ For breaking and entry there has to be intent to commit a crime or deprive someone of their rights or property. Neither occurs when I open a door that is not locked to begin with.@StickyPurpleCat:
Actually that was completely untrue. While I have had offers to sell the rights to my videos for some sort of “Hookers Gone Wild” I have rejected all such offers – one as high as $250,000 plus percentage of the orders.@urban bohemian:
thats a huge bitch!