On June 30, 2024, TikTok user @spontaneouslad posted a partial video displaying the caption, “What a sharp minded this guy is.” Other online postings of the video titled the clip, “Kid Hides in Truck to Avoid Thugs.” The video displays the angle of a security camera in a warehouse. The clip shows a boy or man in a red shirt hopping a fence near train tracks. The boy or man then hides inside a delivery driver’s truck while two purported criminals pursue him. As of this writing, the video received 19.2 million views.
Then, on July 1, @spontaneouslad posted the second and final part of the video. The second half also featured the caption, “What a sharp minded this guy is.”
In this story, I’ll explain everything about these two videos, including revealing who created the clips.
The First Video
One commenter joked after watching the first video, “Good thing the video stopped… they might’ve found him.” Another person wondered, “Why didn’t the worker say, ‘Hey, get out of here. I’m calling the cops.”
Meanwhile, other users believed someone staged the video. For example, one user said, “This looks like a skit.” That user’s comment received over 13,500 likes.
A different user posted, “Definitely staged!” Another commenter added, “That’s a skit. What a coincidence that box was empty and open.”
The Second Video
In the second video, the chase ends with the boy or man in the red shirt escaping from under the truck. He then closes the rear double doors, trapping the two supposed criminals in the back. At present, the video received 2.7 million views.
The caption at the end of the second video read, “The truck driver drove to the nearest police station where the two culprits inside the truck, who were known to the police, were arrested and charged with various offenses.”
Users commented under the second video also claiming someone staged the clips. For example, one person called the video “an act.”
Another commenter said, “This is obviously a huge set up. Why wouldn’t the guy loading the boxes say, ‘Hey, get away from my stuff and get out of here?'”
Further, a different user pointed out the discrepancy regarding the amount of time the two criminals had to escape. The user wrote, “Funny how it took them so long to get from the back of that small truck to the door before he closed it.”
Real or Staged: ‘Kid Hides in Truck to Avoid Thugs’?
In order to find the truth regarding the TikTok videos, I first downloaded both clips. I saved several frames from the videos as image files. Then, I uploaded each one of those image files into a Google Images’ reverse-image search.
After performing numerous reverse-image searches, I decided to search for the aforementioned caption that kept appearing in results. That caption read, “Kid Hides in Truck to Avoid Thugs.”
My search for “Kid Hides in Truck to Avoid Thugs” revealed the source of the videos. The Facebook page The Royal Stampede, managed by two people identified as Mark and Richy, appeared to first post the interesting clips as one video on June 24. The caption read, “KID HIDES IN TRUCK TO AVOID THUGS!!” The Facebook video displayed over 139,000 reactions, 6,800 comments and 20 million views.
According to an article Mashable.com reported in 2016, The Royal Stampede creates prank videos. Numerous British tabloid websites also published The Royal Stampede’s past content featured comedy and pranks. In other words, The Royal Stampede scripted and staged the video of the boy or man running from the two supposed criminals, all for a bit of fun.
‘Kid Gets Bullied By Thugs’
On July 1, The Royal Stampede Facebook page posted a similar video also featuring a truck, delivery driver and two criminals. The clip displayed a view of a residential street. The video supposedly showed two criminals locking the delivery driver in the back of the truck. The caption for the video read, “Kid Gets Bullied By Thugs.” As of this writing, the video displayed over 397 reactions, 219 comments and 116,000 views.
One commenter wrote, “Shouldn’t this be sent to the police? Like WTF.”
A different user remarked, “I can’t believe the person holding the phone filming this didn’t do anything. I hope him or a family member never needs help because someone could be just letting it happen. Unreal.”
Another person said, “What is the purpose of these fake videos? The whole stack is light enough to lift but he brings only a few at a time a mile from where he parked? SMH.”
A fourth commenter also added, “This must be a camera on a pole or a skit. No one could be heartless enough to film this without helping.”
Readers can find more videos on the Facebook page for The Royal Stampede. For example, one popular clip with over 3 million views claimed the group successfully lifted free food out of the backpack of a food delivery driver riding a bicycle.
For further reading, I previously reported about another TikTok video purportedly showing a skinwalker running up an abandoned water slide.