For a man who surprises prostitutes and their customers with a video camera to announce, "You're busted, buddy," Brian Bates is remarkably unscathed. After 15 years of exposing, documenting and railing against street prostitution in Oklahoma City, Bates is known as the "video vigilante. He initially hated the nickname, but he now uses it in the videos he uploads to YouTube, where they find an audience of millions. Commercial, because he makes money selling the licensing rights of his videos to TV production companies.
Activist, because he's a loud and relentless voice in the ear of police, elected officials and society at-large about what he sees as the mostly ignored ugliness of street-level prostitution.
There have been plenty of instances of people with camcorders documenting pimps and prostitutes, but one is hard-pressed to find anyone like Bates who has done it for so long. Bates explains it this way: Some people want to save the whales; he wants to dissuade street prostitutes and their "johns" from the public spectacle of sex-for-pay; if it's behind closed doors or arranged online or by phone, he doesn't care. His methods are simple. He lurks around an area of south Oklahoma City known for prostitution, waits for a prostitute to hop into the vehicle of a customer and follows the pair discreetly to their assignation.
He waits for the right moment to pounce, flinging open the driver's side door to announce, "You're busted, buddy.
Typically, the john will slam his car door and speed away, but sometimes the man exits his vehicle and subjects himself to a withering lecture from Bates, who keeps his camera rolling. Sometimes, the man will beg for mercy. Bates has never been shot, knifed or punched, though he said he has pulled out his Taser on two occasions when johns β who were undressed β appeared ready to do violence on the stranger wielding the camcorder. The pastor "I think he's about half nuts some of the time," says Jack Grimes, a Church of Christ pastor who has watched Bates for years.
