Vancouver police are investigating a disturbing video posted to YouTube showing a young man giving $50 to an apparent panhandler in exchange for kicking him in the groin.

The video was taken Sunday night at around 3 a.m. in downtown Vancouver and shows a group of people standing outside on Granville Street near the Roxy Nightclub.

After one man is kicked, another person is heard asking for money in exchange for getting kicked. The force of the kick appears to send the victim reeling, and then as he leaves, the man who paid him chases him down the street to yelling for his money back. A group of people look on – many laughing.

The video does not show anybody intervening or calling 911.

Riley Speers, the man claiming to have shot the video on his cell phone, said he captured the incident because he wanted to document it for others to see.

“It’s sad really, because the homeless people were accepting of the money,” he told CTV News. “They really wanted it. I guess that the reason why nobody really wanted to intervene was because it was an agreement between both parties.”

Jens Petersen said he’s been on the street for 16 years and saw the ugly incident unfold.

“To me that’s totally degrading,” he said. “The guy is a human being too, that he’s kicking. He’s a street guy and he works on his weakness of needing money to talk the guy into whatever he wanted him to do. That’s not right.”

Videos of similar incidents in other cities in North America can be found online in what seems to be a common ploy of panhandlers to get money.

Police in Vancouver said the incident went too far – but even though it’s deplorable, it may be hard to prove illegal activity occurred.

“Although a person does have the right to consent to being hit, the actions leading up to and following the kick are being investigated as a criminal offense,” Sgt. Randy Fincham said.

Advocates for the city’s most vulnerable said they were shocked at the video and discouraged others from paying panhandlers to do degrading things.

“Their dignity is being compromised, their worth as a human being,” said Union Gospel Mission spokesman Paul Martin. “So that’s where I don’t believe that the $50 is worth that.”

Martin said the city’s poor are only doing what they feel they must to survive and make some money.

“This person that is struggling with shame, with guilt, with regret…that $50 might be enough to melt that guilt and shame for just that moment,” he said.

Fincham said the man police believe to be responsible came forward Thursday and is cooperating with the investigation.

Police have also identified and spoken with both of the victims kicked in the video.

Anyone with information is asked to call Vancouver police at 604-717-3321.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Jonathan Woodward