VIETNAM VIGILANTES BUST CROOKS ON BIKES
‘Street knights’ patrol cities to fight rising crime, ineffectual policing
“STREET knights” hurtling through the streets here are not your typical medieval warriors. Their stallions are scooters. They wear rubber flip-flops, not metal boots. And their shining armour is a tracksuit jacket billowing like a cape.
The band of bike-riding unpaid vigilantes chases down petty criminals in Vietnam’s largest city and the neighbouring province of Binh Duong, where residents grumble about rising crime and ineffectual policing.
“Whenever there’s a call, I show up,” said one of them, Nguyen Thanh Hai, 47, who gets 50 to 100 calls for help every day about robberies, drugs and even kidnappings. “Even at midnight, when I can barely keep my eyes open.”
Hai keeps a notebook recording details of the 4,000 criminals he has helped catch and turn over to police during 21 years as a part-time crime fighter, though he gets no monetary reward.
“You don’t think about money when you do this,” he said.
He is among a group of about 30 men here and 1,500 in the province who have modified their bikes with police-like sirens and upgraded engines that can reach speeds of more than 170kph.
Videos of their high-speed chases have gone viral. One shows thieves weaving between trucks and cars along a suburban highway, with the group in hot pursuit.
“My little son gets so excited when he sees me on YouTube,” said Pham Tan Thanh, 31, a taxi driver in Binh Duong, who is a street knight in his spare time.
Crime is low in Communistruled Vietnam, but petty theft and minor crimes are a growing problem in urban areas like here, home to 8.6 million people.
Last year, the city ranked the third least-safe city worldwide on the Safe Cities Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Barred by law from carrying weapons, many vigilantes have received police training on legal issues and use martial arts for self-defence as their work can be dangerous.
Last month, two were stabbed to death here, and three badly injured in clashes with thieves.
Sin described a fight with a suspected thief who cut himself and rubbed his blood into Sin’s wound. After learning that the suspect had HIV, Sin worried he could have been infected.
“I wanted to quit, but after I recovered and saw clips of robberies on social media, I hit the road. My passion didn’t die.”