October 12, 2009
by La Tisha Clayton | Multimedia Editor
Keeping track of your bicycle’s serial numbers can help police return recovered stolen bicycles.Kristen Stauss
“It’s just a sad and cruel world we live in,” said Adrian Estrada, a City College student whose bicycle was stolen on campus this summer. “Those bicycles belong to somebody; without people having their bicycles, they don’t have transportation to get here.”
Rumors have swirled on campus about the involvement of local bike shops in recent bicycle thefts at City College. The Los Rios Community College Police Department investigated and dismissed that idea, however.
“We got nothing but cooperation from them,” Los Rios Police Department Sgt. Brian Washington said of the businesses. Instead, he says that the thefts are the result of “individuals who are stealing specific bikes and basically trying to turn around and sell them on Craigslist.”
Craigslist, a popular classified advertisement Web site, contains a list of items which are not permitted for sale on the site, including “stolen property or property with serial numbers removed or altered.”
Without any real enforcement, however, many wonder if this policy on stolen property is a toothless deterrent.
Los Rios Police often work to recover stolen bicycles by contacting sellers and arranging meetings in attempts to identify bicycles. One of the obstacles Los Rios Police say they have experienced is that bicycle theft victims do not have serial numbers or distinct, identifying marks on their bicycles to definitely determine that a recovered bicycle is theirs.
“There’s nothing worse than somebody saying, ‘Hey, I saw my bike on Craigslist,’” said Washington. “When you get your things stolen, it’s your word against theirs. We have a feeling that maybe things will start turning around if people are aware of it.”
The Los Rios Police Department Web site suggests a few ways to make it harder for thieves to steal your bicycle and easier to identify your bicycle if it is recovered.
For more information, go to http://crc.losrios.edu/~police.
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