Just when you thought the police couldn't do any less

My bike was jacked ~5 months ago. I filed a police report. I provided a full description of the bike. Yellow harlequin bar tape wrap, yellow fenders – kinda hard to miss. Filed away and forgotten.

Today, walking home, I come across my fucking bike. Nothing has been swapped out, and it’s got a cheap-ass Kryptonite combo cable lock on it.

At the time I have no way of removing the lock, nor do I have my lock with me. But I had already filed the report, so I call the police to see if they’ll be able to unlock it. I know, dumb plan.

Cop eventually shows up, gets the info from the report I’d previously filed. Did I report the serial number? Fuck no. I never wrote it down. Yeah, I should have, but it’s my fucking bike, I filed a full report, and it’s all fucking black and yellow and exactly matches the description in the report I already filed. Long and short, she won’t help me and decides to leave a note asking the “owner” to call the police. She explains that she believes it’s my bike, as if that makes things less ridiculous. I have to wait for her to leave just so I can take my fucking wheel off.

What the motherfucking fuck? What’s the point of the fucking police report if the fucking police won’t use it? More importantly, what the fuck was I thinking ever involving them at all?

Anyway, should I feel at all bad (in case some sucker bought the bike thinking it was square) or concerned for my legal status by cutting the lock? I went back and overlocked it until I can get my hands on a hacksaw (that should do it on a braided cable, yah? it’s a cheesy $15 model), but I could also just leave it overlocked to see if someone comes and takes their lock back. Or maybe I’ll just take all my components back (the frame isn’t worth shit) and if anyone complains I’ll just tell them to call the cops since the components don’t have fucking serial numbers, so there’s no way anyone owns them.

The cop wasn’t even hot.

[quote=gerta]My bike was jacked ~5 months ago. I filed a police report. I provided a full description of the bike. Yellow harlequin bar tape wrap, yellow fenders – kinda hard to miss. Filed away and forgotten.

Today, walking home, I come across my fucking bike. Nothing has been swapped out, and it’s got a cheap-ass Kryptonite combo cable lock on it.

At the time I have no way of removing the lock, nor do I have my lock with me. But I had already filed the report, so I call the police to see if they’ll be able to unlock it. I know, dumb plan.

Cop eventually shows up, gets the info from the report I’d previously filed. Did I report the serial number? Fuck no. I never wrote it down. Yeah, I should have, but it’s my fucking bike, I filed a full report, and it’s all fucking black and yellow and exactly matches the description in the report I already filed. Long and short, she won’t help me and decides to leave a note asking the “owner” to call the police. She explains that she believes it’s my bike, as if that makes things less ridiculous. I have to wait for her to leave just so I can take my fucking wheel off.

What the motherfucking fuck? What’s the point of the fucking police report if the fucking police won’t use it? More importantly, what the fuck was I thinking ever involving them at all?

Anyway, should I feel at all bad (in case some sucker bought the bike thinking it was square) or concerned for my legal status by cutting the lock? I went back and overlocked it until I can get my hands on a hacksaw (that should do it on a braided cable, yah? it’s a cheesy $15 model), but I could also just leave it overlocked to see if someone comes and takes their lock back. Or maybe I’ll just take all my components back (the frame isn’t worth shit) and if anyone complains I’ll just tell them to call the cops since the components don’t have fucking serial numbers, so there’s no way anyone owns them.

The cop wasn’t even hot.[/quote]

What did you expect the cop to do? Arrest them for having a bike that looks the same? Cut the lock with the jaws of life and call it street justice? The situation sucks and of course it’s your bike, but can you imagine what life would be like if we had that kind of legal threshold?

Plain and simple: don’t rely on the cops.

always have the serial #

I’ve been meaning to drop notes with my info inside the bike frame and components for years. Seriously it’s a brilliant way to claim your property. You could hide notes in the seat tube, the stem, rims, hubs, everywhere that has a cavity!

I expect them to use some common sense. Again, I should have known better. The threshold isn’t “gray Stumpjumper.” The bike is bizarre-looking, and I provided those weird details in the police report so it could be uniquely identified. Their only threshold is clearly the serial number. And really, that would be fine by me, except that when they took the report, they recorded those details and they knew I didn’t have a serial number. Why take the report at all? Why waste everyone’s time if they’re not going to do shit?

i say steal it back

Or look at it this way:
Some guy says his bike is stolen. Said guy “finds” a bike that looks the same. There is no proof guy ever owned bike, that said bike is not just coincidentally similar looking, or anything. This is why cars have VIN numbers. Sorry dude, but you didn’t collect the necessary information. The serial number is a pretty reasonable threshold, because it’s the only thing that really proves the bike is at least the same bike in question. It’s common sense to you because you know it’s your bike, but it’s not to the cop.

I would assume police are required to take an official report of any crime, regardless of the likelihood of it being resolved. I prefer this to letting them pick and choose.

EDIT: Also, you didn’t say what you wanted them to actually do. Please tell.

Watch someone report the bike stolen after you cut the lock and then you somehow get in trouble for stealing your bike back.

Or look at it this way:
Some guy says his bike is stolen. Said guy “finds” a bike that looks the same. There is no proof guy ever owned bike, that said bike is not just coincidentally similar looking, or anything. This is why cars have VIN numbers. Sorry dude, but you didn’t collect the necessary information. The serial number is a pretty reasonable threshold, because it’s the only thing that really proves the bike is at least the same bike in question. It’s common sense to you because you know it’s your bike, but it’s not to the cop.

I would assume police are required to take an official report of any crime, regardless of the likelihood of it being resolved. I prefer this to letting them pick and choose.

EDIT: Also, you didn’t say what you wanted them to actually do. Please tell.[/quote]

Huh? I wanted them to cut the lock off and let me have my bike back. As it stands, I’ll just need to do that myself and assume the risk of getting nailed “stealing” my bike.

So it’s reasonable to think there’s another fixed gear bike with yellow candy pedals, black+yellow diamond wrap, yellow+black saddle, built up on an old Kabuki frame? b/c that’s the info I gave them, and it remains identical. While I understand them having problems discriminating similar bikes, I don’t think Columbo would come out of retirement for this one. Am I really that out of touch with non bike-folks that I think that’s a pretty unique combo to the average eye? I suppose they could argue I just checked out this bike, liked it, and filed a report; but then there’s nothing stopping me from checking and reporting the serial number, either.

Regardless, the idea that they’re confined to some inflexible threshold is the kind of institutional logic I’ve come to expect but still can’t stomach. The cop acknowledged it was my bike, and it’s not like they can’t come find me if someone else later insists it was theirs. But there’s a rule about serial numbers, so you know, they’d rather just leave it stolen.

This has seriously crossed my mind, especially now that I made the crazy-headed mistake of calling the cops to tell them I found my bike. But really, I’ll basically just be getting my components back to swap in on other builds, and the frame (along with its magical serial number) isn’t worth reusing anyway.

Honestly, if the police care this little, I wouldn’t be too worried. Yah you should be careful going around cutting locks and whatnot, but don’t think would get squad cars out riding around looking for you and your bike.

Yeah, it’s mostly just cutting the lock that seems sketchy. But really, I’m sure there won’t be a cop nearby, as it’s some distance from the road. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them how I got hosed and get them to hold the cable still so I can saw faster.

I’ve considered this as well, little laminated pieces of paper with a name and phone number.

I write my name and phone on all my rim strips when I build them, and on fork steerers. There would be a few other places you could do this as well, etching it into the seatpost, on the handle bar, under the wrap.

But, this is only effective if you find the bike again, and they are willing to spend enough time on it to let you take these parts off and search for the name.

Or look at it this way:
Some guy says his bike is stolen. Said guy “finds” a bike that looks the same. There is no proof guy ever owned bike, that said bike is not just coincidentally similar looking, or anything. This is why cars have VIN numbers. Sorry dude, but you didn’t collect the necessary information. The serial number is a pretty reasonable threshold, because it’s the only thing that really proves the bike is at least the same bike in question. It’s common sense to you because you know it’s your bike, but it’s not to the cop.

I would assume police are required to take an official report of any crime, regardless of the likelihood of it being resolved. I prefer this to letting them pick and choose.

EDIT: Also, you didn’t say what you wanted them to actually do. Please tell.[/quote]
So what If I find this real nice njs frame locked up outside this bank, I take down all the info, even look under the frame for the serial number, then report it was missing to the police, would they end up cutting the lock and giving me a free bike?

Unethical, definitely yes, but just saying since we’re discussing theft, would it work?

Because I would be sure pissed if someone did that to me

take a pic of the bike, jot down the serial number, and make a list of every part and what value it holds. if you dont know cuz it’s old, jot down its value when new.

then put that bitch on your renter’s insurance or home insurance.

if you dont have either, ur stupid. register it with campus police or something.

this is a good idea. go buy a park tool kit of some kind and squat down in the dirt and start extracting parts in broad daylight. even better bring a workstand.

this is a good idea. go buy a park tool kit of some kind and squat down in the dirt and start extracting parts in broad daylight. even better bring a workstand.[/quote]

I already took my wheel since I had a wrench on me, and only the frame (which I don’t particularly want) is locked. But really, while I can strip the bike in a few minutes, it won’t be super quick, esp the bb spindle that I’d like to have to keep a good chainline with the crank. Seems to me it’s probably faster to cut the lock, but maybe not. Anyone have experience cutting cable locks? ~10mm braided cable. Hacksaw fast enough?

you seem to have missed the sarcasm

cut the lock.