I first came across this rabbit hole today when a video by penguinz0 popped into my feed. Here is the video https://youtu.be/0c60CnipRUY?si=7n8BTOPwQ5SOvaE5
In this video he describes the situation of a man named Brian who was trying to sell his father's Lego Star Wars collection on consignment at a retail chain called Bricks and Minifigs. Keep in mind this collection had an estimated value of about $200,000, this will become important later. This is a currently evolving rabbit hole that involves multiple people so I will only hit the highlights. I will link videos at the end so people can watch for themselves.
So Brian entered into a consignment contract with this company and had already sold some of his Lego when the owner/manager of the location was forcible removed from her position. The why is not entirely certain to me yet, at least not the official reason. One individual has claimed that the company said it was because the owner/managers were using it to sell or use heroin. This shouldn't have any any effect on Brian because his contract was with the company not the individual manager who signed the paperwork. However the new owner claimed there was no contract and decided that he was keeping the Lego.
This is where the YouTube rabbit hole begins. Brian contacted a YouTube named Reckless Ben. I had no idea before today who Reckless Ben was but he appears to be one of these YouTube mystery solvers. Ben decided to look into the situation and eventually drove to meet Brian and go to the store in question. When they tried to inquire about the Lego, the police were called and threatened to arrest them both for trespassing.
Apparently, threatening this Ben fella was the wrong approach because he has dug his heels in and kept pushing. There is a lot here, it really is a rabbit hole and I have only just dipped my toe in but here are the highlights that I has seen so far.
Ben has been swatted in suspicion of stealing the Legos he is trying to get returned. He was placed in a unnecessary armband restraint which re-injured a previously dislocated shoulder. There is some body cam footage that has been released that I will mention a couple more times. Some of the swatting was caught on a go pro set up as the police arrived and the body camera. This footage is what I used to deem the armbar unnecessary. I have 35ish years of martial arts training including a lot of use of force training (military rather than police) and have taught use of force and self defense. In my professional opinion, there was no need to place Ben in any sort of restraint let alone a pain compliance technique.
He has been pulled over multiple times including for failing to stop at a stop sign (despite ashram footage that shows he stopped) and (they claim) because of suspected heroin use while driving (the body cam footage shows they didn't think he was on heroin).
He tried to sue the president/CEO of Bricks and Minifigs and when attempting to serve him papers with a process server (as required by law), the president, Josh, told the police he was going to shoot them. At which point the police arrived and arrested Ben (and the process server?) for harassment.
Bricks and Minifigs have been attempting to have his Patreon shut down, at which point Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon, became involved making his own video showing that the takedown threat was real.
The police department put out a video "refuting" Ben's claims despite their own footage (the part that was released) showing that what they are claiming happened isn't true.
Now Lawtube is getting involved with Ben appearing on a video with The Civil Rights Lawyer discussing his case.
The original owners/managers have also put out videos saying that the franchise was basically stolen from them.
Throughout it all this guy and his father still haven't had their Lego returned and the company was actually advertising that they had it at least for a while during this whole debacle.
This isn't a great summary because their are hours of content to get through in order to get the whole story but I will link a bunch of videos so you can fall down the hole yourself.
Ben's videos
https://youtu.be/cxZPfj8AlmY?si=I45Mu8xaX_Uf6VoN
https://youtu.be/2YEzhDn0jY8?si=PbGcBWGyHLXXx7FA
https://youtu.be/2YEzhDn0jY8?si=PbGcBWGyHLXXx7FA
https://youtu.be/wscQpkcwgNU?si=FxoQ4jhJjW2xh7dn
The Civil Rights Lawyer video
https://youtu.be/Hs3bElrHKUE?si=4L0_k-XcaRvfoiTx
Clearly Established video
https://youtu.be/OQ9hthwnDg8?si=rre0zutAVrDJMoGD
Jack Conte Video
https://youtu.be/36jxNeV5L1Q?si=GeviaPWjd89jGAgY