Superhero Frees Cars from the Clamp

(Reuters) He wears a baby-blue spandex jumpsuit and shiny gold panties, gloves, cape, boots and goggles. He wields a giant, metal-cutting circular power saw. Who is Angle Grinder Man?

He is Britain’s self-styled “first wheel-clamp and speed camera vigilante cum subversive superhero philanthropist entertainer type person.” That’s who.

For those not familiar with industrial machine tools, an angle grinder is the saw best suited to cutting through plates of steel, such as, say, the wheel clamps that authorities use to immobilize illegally parked cars in London.

And Angle Grinder Man offers his “free clamp-removal service” to “all good, decent law-unabiding people” who would rather fight back than pay to have their cars released.

All a clamped motorist has to do is call AGM’s hotline and out comes the roadside rescue superhero to saw through the brace and release the car.

British newspapers love him. Taxi drivers are talking about him. And apparently he is for real.

His Web Site shows him, sparks a-flying, carrying out an act of apparent criminal damage on a clamp to “liberate” a red saloon car on a London street.

He advertises his hotline at his Web Site, anglegrinderman.co.uk. Since the press latched on to him, his voicemail box has been full.

His tips: “You will need a petrol-driven, 5,000 revolutions-per-minute angle grinder and a 300mm diameter metal cutting disc. It is dangerous to use a diamond-tipped or similar slotted cutting disc on metal. Always use a solid one.”

Also: better to saw off clamps attached by private contractors than those placed by actual police, who can arrest you.

Angle Grinder Man says his actions are a political protest against “the arrogant contempt that politicians hold for the people who put them in power.”

But police say it is no joke. Even private clamp owners can press charges.

“What might seem a light-hearted gesture to some would be considered criminal damage to others,” a spokesman for Scotland Yard said. “Any act of deliberate vandalism would be acted on by the police.”