Student vigilance needed to stop bike theft
With 80 to 90 percent of bike theft on campus going unsolved,
students have reason to worry.
“You’ve got to lock your bike up,” said Ted MacLean, sophomore
engineering major. “It’s just such a huge campus, your bike will
disappear if you don’t watch it.”
With bike riding being the most common form of transportation
among students, according to www.housing.colostate.edu, bike
registration is mandatory for anyone who brings a bike to campus.
However, registration may not be enough to stop these crimes
without some additional student assistance.
“If someone sees something suspicious they should call it in,”
said Capt. Bob Chaffee, press information officer for CSU Police
Department. “We’ll check it out and if it happens that it’s the
bike’s actual owner we will apologize for bothering them.”
Even though sophomore Joe Reid did not consider it stealing when
he was caught by CSUPD lifting bikes at the end of last school
year, he was convicted of misdemeanor bike theft, along with two
other students.
“We thought the bikes were abandoned because school was out and
the kids weren’t there anymore,” Reid said. “All of the sudden we
turned around and cops were walking up to us, we tried to tell them
we didn’t think of it as stealing.”
Reid was granted a deferred judgment for his role in the theft,
but could face up to a year in jail if he violates the conditions
of his probation.
Although no one can be sure of definite reasons for the
prevalence of bike theft, some of its prevention may lie in simple
precautions.
“People definitely need to use the locks that they have,”
Chaffee said. “We catch some of the bad guys but the fact is that
most of these crimes go unsolved.”
All bikes are at risk, no matter what their value, and no time
of day is safe.
“You would think more expensive bikes would be targeted, but
every kind of bike is being taken,” Chaffee said. “And daytime is
no safer than night, which is disturbing because someone should see
what’s going on.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.