A staged scene using actors and hidden cameras to portray a bicycle theft in public view has gone viral on the Web, and suggests that race had a profound effect on the reactions of witnesses to the "crime."
ABC News' "What Would You Do?" recreated a bike theft in a neighborhood park to see what ordinary people would do if they witnessed a bike being stolen by a young teen — who, if asked, would confess.
Equipped with bolt cutters, a chain saw and a hammer, the first thief, white actor Justin Kelly began his mission to break the bike free. Passers-by looked on, some suspiciously. Many people stopped and stared at the "thief" in action and some people even questioned him.
"I guess I have to ask — is that your bike?" asked park-goer Leslie Bolin.
"I guess technically no," Kelly replied, but Bolin, like many others, took no action. Some said that they were scared, and would call police at a later time.
One young woman gave Kelly the benefit of the doubt, she said, because of his race. "I remember thinking, 'Young, white men don't usually carry burglary tools,'" said Bisa Washington, an African-American woman.
ABC A bike theft is simulated to gauge the reactions of passers-by. "Our thoughts were, 'Well, if he had been black or a person of color, the police would have been called in immediately,'" she said.
When an African-American actor took Kelly's place, the reactions were more pronounced. At one point, a crowd assembled around the purported thief and confronted him directly. One man pulled out a cellphone and said he was calling the police, which he was about to do until the cameramen filming the event stepped forward.
A final twist involved an attractive blond actress, who took up the bolt cutters to obviously steal the bike. "Need a hand with that?" asks another biker, who then proceeds to help her lift the bike.
The social experiment, filmed in 2010, has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube.
In New York City, the police department reported a more than 25% increase in bike thefts across the city in the first half of 2012, with 1,694 bikes reported stolen as of last July 31, up from 1,346 over the same period of 2011.
According to the National Bike Registry, more than 1 million bicycles are stolen every year nationwide.
