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Where do stolen bikes go?

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Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#251

Post by yodsanklai »

zdragnar wrote: post #202
dclowd9901 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property crime is up everywhere. Nothing societally has changed, so I think the onus is on you to prove they aren’t just sitting there twiddling their thumbs. With their powerful unions and patterns of “blue flu”, the police don’t exactly have a great track record of response (not even going into the weeds of armed responses gone awry).

Here is some super trivial googling for you: https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/wa/seattle/crime Over 46k crimes (property and violent) 1200 officers funded, though I've seen other stats that there are only 940 active employed 800k 911 calls per year https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department... That's 3-ish 911 responses per day, assuming an average of one officer for every call. Add on top of that…

46k crimes, that would be about 120 crimes per day for 1000 officers, probably including a lot of smaller crimes such as stolen bikes. If they never investigate a stolen bike (esp. in that case where the stolen bike was localized), they make bike stealing de facto legal. That being said, I understand they need to prioritize.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#252

Post by wil421 »

prawn wrote: post #134
maximinus_thrax wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also in the western, US (the PNW) and my bike was stolen a couple of years back. It had a sticker and a registration number from my apartment building, which they called and left their phone number saying they found the bike abandoned and want to return it. I called the number, and they told me to meet up somewhere in a relatively rough neighborhood. I told them I would love to meet up in front of a police precin…

Isn't that incredible. It's almost "We can't go with you to that place and investigate a crime because a crime might happen!" I'm not from the US and I've only ever had positive interactions with police, but cases like this which would be low effort for them and have a useful impact on petty crime in their region, seem very frustrating.

That would never happen in my area in the US. The cops would probably tell you not to go but they’d be interested in every bit of info you had. If it wasn’t in their jurisdiction they’d help me find the right department.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#253

Post by GuB-42 »

grecy wrote: post #95
bckygldstn wrote: post #21

There's a Dutch bike company (VanMoof) that offers a Theft Recovery service for their bikes: they have teams of people that track down the bike (using GPS primarily) and basically steal it back. They used to produce monthly videos of bike recovery operations, though it looks like they've stopped the videos so you'll have to scroll past a few years of promo videos: https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof Often they recover t…

> basically steal it back This brings up an interesting legal question. Is it illegal to steal back your own property? Even if you trespass onto private property to do so, the person would have to get the Police involved to do anything about that, at which time you can say "Sure, I'll take the trespassing charge, and while we're here I'm leaving with all of my property".

I guess it depends on local law, but I guess that trespassing is trespassing, and the thief can sue, and it probably already happened.

It is a little different but on one occasion, in France, some guy sold a computer online, sent it, and never got paid. Pissed off, he broke in the crook house and took back his computer (plus a few other things, not smart...), they both sued each other, the crook ended up in prison for 2 months, and the one who broke into his house had 4 months suspended sentence. But even if he just took back his computer, he would still be guilty, but the judge would most likely have handed out a lighter sentence.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#254

Post by soco »

u02sgb wrote: post #232
convolvatron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is patently not true. maybe titanium is gummy enough to give one trouble? but any steel that isn't brittle enough to shatter when you look at it is going to be trivial to cut with an abrasive disk and a battery powered grinder. if the chain is 1/2" instead of 1/4", it will take an extra minute maybe.

There are now d-locks that are angle grinder resistant. The reviews I've read suggest they need two cuts to open and each cut uses a full angle grinder disc. As ever, impossible to stop a determined thief, but starting to get "good enough".

Do you have some example links on those locks? Might be interesting to check...

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#255

Post by scotty79 »

We bought two used bicycles in Amsterdam. Guy we bought it from looked a bit sketchy and had like 20-30 bikes in a spot near his home. Most of them were in pretty bad condition but we could pick the ones we liked. I had a strong suspicion that some of them could be stolen. But hey, they were priced at 30 euros not 100 like new ones. When we left Amsterdam few months later we sold them (bit cheaper) to another couple of young probably tourists so they went back into the ecosystem.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#256

Post by soco »

GuB-42 wrote: post #253
grecy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically steal it back This brings up an interesting legal question. Is it illegal to steal back your own property? Even if you trespass onto private property to do so, the person would have to get the Police involved to do anything about that, at which time you can say "Sure, I'll take the trespassing charge, and while we're here I'm leaving with all of my property".

I guess it depends on local law, but I guess that trespassing is trespassing, and the thief can sue, and it probably already happened. It is a little different but on one occasion, in France, some guy sold a computer online, sent it, and never got paid. Pissed off, he broke in the crook house and took back his computer (plus a few other things, not smart...), they both sued each other, the crook ended up in prison fo…

With the stolen bike, if the vanmoofs are stealthy enough to no get caught in the act, it might go pretty fine as I assume the thieves won't file police reports. Now if they already sold it, things might get hairy... in my place when your car gets stolen and you file a report you need to provide all kind of documents which a stolen bike owner won't possibly have. So I guess approaching the same way for theft of expensive gear (need to provide ownership proof) could curb it a little. And yes, I know also cars get stolen.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#257

Post by scotty79 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #30

I had a £2,000 electric bike stolen in Oxford. No worries - it had a GPS tracker, and I could see it heading to Birmingham up the M40. Also, my neighbour had CCTV footage. You couldn't make out the faces or number-plate, but you could see it was a black Mercedes. It was taken at about 3AM. So they had "liberated" the bike (it was locked up), and immediately headed out of town. I'm sure it was scouted, then they came…

I think it might about the price. You had a 2000 pound bike. Amsterdam is full of 50 pound bikes.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#258

Post by archi42 »

jmyeet wrote: post #16

Property theft can be broadly separated into two categories: opportunistic and professional. You leave your wallet on a restaurant table by accident it may well get stolen opportunistically. The thief may have limited or no history of theft. An opportunity merely presented itself. It could also be teenagers stealing a car for a joyride. The second, bigger category is professional theft. Note that "professional" here…

Even if the police can not do a lot about it, the report will end up in some statistic. That statistic in turn might lead to more resources assigned to the issue, either directly (crack downs, recovery squads, whatever) or indirectly (programs to get people into proper jobs, help for drug addicts, whatever). This might also serve as a control for indirect measures.

People often demand decision makers to make good decisions, and to look at the data. But then we need to apply that data to them.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#259

Post by scotty79 »

gambiting wrote: post #213
guywithahat wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it? You can conceal carry (or open carry, for that matter) in Texas, and you'd be a lunatic to follow a criminal anywhere to get your property back. Heck I conceal carried when I got my last used car, because there's no way I'm bringing ten grand to get a car from a guy I met on craigslist with no backup

Why shouldn't it? If I rang the police and said "I'm about to commit violence against someone else" you can bet I'd be arrested. Why doesn't the same rule apply here? Carrying a weapon being or not being legal has no bearing on this at all.

Why violence. He just announced he's going to pick up his property that got misplaced. Gun is just for his protection. Nothing out of ordinary here.

Re: Where do stolen bikes go?

#260

Post by denton-scratch »

winter_blue wrote: post #166
dazc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't about the value of property, it's about the effort required and chances of improving future career prospects. Recovering stolen bikes is, therefore, very low priority. I had a similar experience where I followed a bike thief to his home, again police not interested. Police forces in the UK have various campaigns where they will, for example, spend a month targeting a particular crime or social nuisance. With…

What would happened if your were to obtain some weapons, and attempt to execute the recovery by yourself?

Well, I'm not a fighting man. Probably the outcome would be that my adversary would take the weapon off me, and use it against me. Also, the resulting breach of the peace would put me in the frame for assault with a deadly weapon.
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