PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) – A Portland Bike Theft Task Force officer had his own bicycle stolen.
Officer Dave Sanders is the first to acknowledge the irony. He has been working for years to prevent bike thefts across Portland, but on Thursday, someone took his bike parked in front of the Multnomah County Courthouse.
Sanders said he was running late for grand jury and left his U-lock at the office, so he secured his police bike to the rack with a pair of handcuffs.
When he came back out, the bike was gone and the cuffs were left dangling from the rack.
You have to figure that if PD sucks at gun safety, securing other less lethal devices is not going to have a great track record.
Sanders said only one in 10 stolen bikes are recovered in Portland, but having it registered doubles those chances.
On this one I am going to say it is average pretty much everywhere in the Nation. And 10% seems generous IMHO. On my last Security job, I found out how bad bike theft is in reality. They are not that hard to steal and provide you with a cheap means of transportation if your finances are in the gutter. They do not make noise so attention is not called upon you and even the toughest of cops cannot waste a whole shift going after bikes because the riders are not following the law. And I forgot: parts are not necessarily cheap, so you have ” free” cannibalization. I wonder how many bicycles , whole and in part, are at the bottom of the many South Florida bodies of water.
I have had 2 or 3 stolen over the years. A few years back some enterprising kids came up to my open garage in the middle of the day while I was home and had literally stepped inside to answer the phone to steal 2 bikes. I found one about 3 blocks away a few days later and just went into the yard and took it back. The other one lost for good.
The only reason the city can say only one in ten bikes is stolen is because that is only the level reported to them. I’d say it’s probably close to one in five.
Since most homeless camps in Portland double as bicycle chop shops, even 1 in 5 may be optimistic. That said, I had nice bikes in Beaverton for 15 years and never lost one.
I moved across the continent, practically, from Detroit to Portland, with my bike strapped to the back of the car. Somewhere along the journey, the front tire got punctured and needed replacing… But it was also late December, so I didn’t worry about it.
Three months later, I finally replace the tire, take a pleasant ride to the grocery store to pick up some stuff for dinner. Left it on the front porch of our apartment while I walked in with the bag of groceries. Left the front door open too. In a tiny apartment, I was maybe 15’ away from it… But, poof, it was gone.
Damn thing was out of my line of sight for maybe 30 seconds.
Damn…
The first thing I thought of was this:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/rg6pm6/reno-911–new-boots
But as annoying as Portland’s high rate of bicycle theft is, what really stings is our auto theft rates:
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2017/11/29/in-portland-you-can-steal-cars-over-and-over-and-get-away-with-it-heres-how/
That is insane!