Joe Hanks remembered thinking he was having a nightmare when he woke up to an alert on his phone that his gym’s security alarm had been set off on Monday morning.
“This is a bad dream, isn’t it? Not again,” Hanks recalled thinking.
Brick City Boxing, a gym in Pasadena, has been burglarized twice in the past two months.
“When I looked at the camera, it looks like a young guy,” Hanks said. “I’m not trying to put somebody in prison because they're hungry or because they need a few dollars to get by. I would much rather find a way to help them.”
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By the time Hanks made it to the gym around 5:30 a.m., the burglar had fled and Hanks found shards of glass scattered on the ground.
Hanks said that the people who showed up to the gym's 6 a.m. class did not let him clean anything up. They immediately grabbed brooms and helped put the gym back together, he said, a testament to the community he has built at Brick City Boxing.
The first burglary occurred on May 13. Hanks said the thief stole items that “can’t be replaced,” such as his fighting gloves and championship belt.
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Hanks explained that he used the belt as a symbol of hope for the younger kids at the gym.
“I was bullied and I just kept working hard and I just kept my head down and kept believing in myself a little bit every day, and this was the outcome. I see them light up when they get a chance to put the belt on or hold it,” he said.
Both burglaries are still under investigation.
Building a community
Boxing “saved my life,” Hanks said.
“It made me look deep inside myself to see that I can achieve the things that I put my mind to,” he said, adding that the sport “gave me an opportunity to be seen.”
He said boxing has taught him how to be persistent and has introduced him to new people and cultures. Through Brick City Boxing, Hanks wanted to share the opportunities and hope that boxing gave him. “It gives me a chance to build community,” he said.
Hanks said his gym highlights “everyday champions: people coming out, facing their fears, trying something new.”
Some of the people who come into the gym are dealing with anxiety or depression, and the gym can be an environment where they feel supported, Hanks said.
Media attention
Hanks originally did not want to speak to any media outlets about the burglaries. “I normally just take the punch on the chin and keep on swinging,” he said, but his clients urged him to bring more attention to the incidents.
“I was actually taken aback a bit that it meant that much to the clients that the word got out that we were doing something really cool here and people are trying to stop us from operating,” he added.
Hanks said that he is speaking about the burglaries “to show that if we get knocked down, we're going to get back up, to show my people support me here, that I'm here, I'm human. It bothered me. It hurts a little bit, but look: here I am.”
He hopes that his story will ”bring awareness to the area,” and that there will be more safety resources such as police and lighting to help people feel safe.
Hanks said that though he learned not to leave valuable items in the gym after the first burglary, he hopes that people in the stores next to him will “feel safe and secure to close their businesses and know it’s going to be the same way as they left it the night before.”
