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Vigilante brawls with thief after using app to track down iPhone

The construction worker and his friend, Greg Torkelson, took the law into their own hands after calling the phone repeatedly to no answer

Rob Williams
Thursday 10 January 2013 16:03 GMT
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Video footage showing a vigilante brawling with a man who allegedly stole his phone
Video footage showing a vigilante brawling with a man who allegedly stole his phone

Video footage showing a vigilante brawling with a man who allegedly stole his phone, has gone viral.

Kenneth Schmidgall, 26, had his mobile taken from him at a reggae concert and used the 'Find My iPhone' application to locate it.

The construction worker and his friend, Greg Torkelson, took the law into their own hands after calling the phone repeatedly to no answer.

They spent hours tracking the phone's signal until they realised it led to a man riding a bicycle.

'I saw the gentleman on the bike and we followed it and kept tracking it and every time [the tracker] would stop, the guy on the bike would stop,' Schmidgall told ABC News 10.

The fight between the two men lasted around 18 minutes and was captured on video by Mr Torkelson.

"Some of it was a little bit of adrenaline… you know, it was the chase of trying to get the guy, said Mr Schmidgall.

"It's not the phone that's so much important," he said. "It's that people get away with this kind of stuff all the time with cellphones being stolen.

"I do think I taught him his lesson.

"I really don't think people should be going out and getting in fights with people because of their cellphones but there comes a point when you have to stand up for yourself and say, 'This is my stuff, and I'm not going to let people get away with taking it.'"

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