Video vigilante captures misdeeds

Clips humiliate; activist profits

Camera in hand, Brian Bates patrolled the outskirts of Oklahoma City recently for men consorting with prostitutes. "If you get caught by me, you get a life sentence," Bates bragged. (Mark Zimmerman for the Los Angeles Times)

OKLAHOMA CITY - It was a bright blue winter morning in this Bible Belt capital, and Brian Bates was happy. The balmy weather conditions, he explained, were conducive to his peculiar line of work: public humiliation.

Steering wheel in one hand, camcorder in the other, Bates slowly drove a white Ford Explorer with tinted windows past a procession of sad-eyed prostitutes. But his camera was not trained on them - it was targeting their customers. Bates, the self-styled Video Vigilante of Oklahoma City, sneaks up and surprises men consorting with prostitutes, and then posts cleaned-up versions of the footage on the Internet - to disgrace them.

"If you get caught by the cops, you pay a fine. If you get caught by me, you get a life sentence," Bates bragged. "No probation. People will be hitting that video on Google searches as long as you live."

Bates, 38, is part of a new breed of activists who are using inexpensive video camera technology to capture immoral and socially unacceptable public behavior. Often, they focus on criminal acts committed under the nose of law enforcement. Sometimes, they point the camera at the authorities themselves.

Because of Bates's sexual subject matter and his penchant for self-promotion, he may be the most notorious of the video activists. Tens of thousands of people watch his clips on the Internet every year, eager to be amused by the sight of a man being shamed - and when they do, Bates profits.

What started out as the modern equivalent of a tarring and feathering in a town square has become a paycheck for Bates, a former marketing manager for a hospital. Bates still has a regular job cobbling together lists of people jailed the night before that he sells to lawyers every morning. But he's hoping to leave that behind for a full-time career as a public humiliation professional.

He licenses his footage to talk shows for $250 a clip, gets paid to appear as an exclusive guest on Maury Povich's television show for an amount he would not disclose, and recently agreed to upload his videos to YouTube for a cut of the ad revenue they generate. If he gets as many hits in 2008 as he claims he got in 2007, Bates said he'll earn $70,000 this year from his Web traffic alone.

"I'm a 10 o'clock news station's dream," he said. "Before me, there were many antiprostitution activists in Oklahoma City. No one can remember their names. But everyone knows the Video Vigilante."

Bates began his camcorder crusade a decade ago because he felt powerless, he said. Prostitutes along a dilapidated byway leading into downtown made no secret of what they were doing. Men in trucks and luxury sedans picked them up and parked on the surrounding streets, in full view of children and families.

Bates lived nearby. One day, he discovered a prostitute and her client in a car in his driveway. He tried testifying against the men, but most cases fizzled. When a prosecutor told him, somewhat jokingly, that the only way to get a conviction was to catch the men on videotape, Bates thought it was a brilliant idea.

Since becoming the Video Vigilante, a name first used on a news report, Bates has captured hundreds of Oklahomans on tape.

Police say Bates's recordings are considered legal because he videotapes acts on public streets, but some civil libertarians have called them unethical, saying he's serving as judge, jury, and executioner.