"Hopefully he takes this as a lesson:" Man confronts teen who stole his car, does the unthinkable

MILWAUKEE -- A teen is accused of stealing a car but the owner doesn't call police, instead he deals with it in a more 'unconventional' way. But is it the best way?

First of all, it's getting a pretty big reaction from both sides of the table, and many people are weighing in because it was all recorded and posted to social media.

In a video, a group confronts a teenager on 12th and Center, after recognizing the car he's driving.

Things get pretty rough at times -- someone slaps the teen and others threaten him. But soon his grandmother shows up, along with the owner of the vehicle he is accused of stealing.

"This is a message man straight up! A real man-to-man message," shouted the man in the video.

"When people are trying to resolve tough situations on their own, it tends to get ugly. It tends to look ugly at first, but what you see is the wheels turning," said Tory Lowe, community activist.

Lowe posted the video to his Facebook page. He says he gets requests like this on a daily basis -- more and more seem to be in a vein, almost "scared straight" approach.

"I think right now, people are using unconventional ways to handle some of the serious issues in our city, especially with the teens in Milwaukee," said Lowe.

In this case, the police are never called -- instead, the man talks directly to the teen.

"You know how many murders we had here? We had 115 boy! You could have been 116 real quick today," the man tells the boy.

The man even offers to help him in the future.

"What you're seeing is compassion. What you're seeing is an opportunity to show this young man, to have a teachable moment, and hopefully he takes this as a lesson and proves himself," Lowe said.

The video posted to Facebook already has over 33,000 views, 530 likes and 942 shares.

Tory Lowe believes that in itself is one of the reasons this could work and have an impact on the teen involved, and even others.