A compilation of videos showing the TikToker breaking car mirrors went viral on social media, and several users condemned him. The man said the recordings are old and that he now regrets it.
Many users question the controversial content published by Cristian Norberto Heidenreich, known as “Bike Bandit”, on their social media and repudiated the incitement to road violence. In response to the criticism, the 38-year-old man addressed the accusations he received for break mirrors of several cars and to reprimand the drivers that were parked on the bike paths.
“Daily observations on a bicycle. The mistakes made by drivers and #AsesinosAlVolante, curious, funny things and everything I can find on the street on a bike I'll show you," he announces in the description of his YouTube channel, where he has more than 144 thousand subscribers, along with the hashtag “#BicicletasIndisciplinadas”.
However, the images he himself recorded with a camera show him riding along different bike paths in Buenos Aires and seeing vehicles or motorcycles parked in his path - and even calling the attention of pedestrians - attacks them or rebukes them mentioning alleged traffic violations.
In a conversation with the A24 program Diario de la Tarde, the cyclist said that he began filming videos in July 2020 and justified his actions by assuring that the recordings circulating “they are old”“I decided to do it because I suffered road rage at the hands of a bus driver, and I took out my cell phone to record it in case something happened to me,” he explained at the beginning. He also revealed that he had a strong altercation years ago, and that's why when a driver answers or gets out of the vehicle, chooses to flee the scene, details Infobae.
"I shoot because I don't want to fight. I was hit once when I was driving a car, and I got out with pepper spray because the person wouldn't leave, It didn't work for me, they hit me and I ended up with three stitches.They threw me around the floor and gave me a hammer blow to the back of the neck"I'm not going to pay for these glasses," he said. "These glasses I'm wearing cost me 20,000 pesos, and I don't know how much they'll cost me now if they break them," he added.
When the journalist asked him if that experience prior to his incorporation into the virtual world had not been sufficiently instructive, Cristian acknowledged: “It lasted a while, but then I got angry again at the things I saw and I started recording, because today if it doesn't go viral, they don't pay attention to you either."
He also reaffirmed his motto of “Justice by one's own means”, and responded to some of the criticisms of his actions. “It degenerated into all this violence, that is not good and I am sorry"I don't break mirrors every day, but I did do what you see in the videos, and I want you to understand that it's infuriating at the time," he argued. He continued: "I don't have a body, and it's infuriating that they put your life at risk when you have nothing to defend yourself with, but I was wrong."
Contradictorily, he then made another clarification: “I was one of those who attacked cyclists on Twitter, saying that they don't respect anything, they cross on red, which is something that also happens, but then I started recording the other side of the story, because I wanted to make visible what people suffer on and off the bike paths." In this regard, he maintained that it bothers him that drivers offer "excuses" when he confronts them. "The soda vendors, the soda delivery trucks, they tell you: 'I'm working, where do you want me to download?'', and if not the typical, 'Oh I didn't see you', or 'Cars have blind spots'; and that's why I I answer them with sarcasm", he justified.
"In Once, you have the street vendors on the bike path, so if I can, I go slowly, avoiding the same shoppers, and if not, I go out onto the street. Then there's the one who tells you: 'Take the bike path', and they don't realize there are people there and you can't get through," she complained. Hours earlier, she had also given her testimony on the news program Telenoche, and during the interview, she admitted that she resorted to that content because she saw it had an effect on the number of views of other controversial influencers. "I saw them going viral by breaking mirrors and I said: 'I'm going to break a mirror and I'll never break it again if they do anything to me.'", he said.
“I got fired for breaking a mirror"And there's no justification for it, but when they put your life at risk, it's hard to control yourself," he said. He added: "They've told me: 'If I want to, I'll crash into you, the insurance will pay anyway,' so I admit what I did, but he passed me two centimeters from the handlebars, so he could have killed me. They don't care, they kill us every day and no one is outraged."
With more than 12,000 followers on Instagram, and 192,000 on TikTok, in another video he is seen hitting a car with his chain and then asking for help from police officers, shouting: “He wants to step on me, please help.”Cristian's justification for this was the same, and he again resorted to anger at the lack of protection for the cyclists' lives: "It makes you feel very helpless, and often, you can't control yourself." In the interviews he gave, he also stated that since his identity became known, receives threats and aggressive comments on social networks.
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