Bike theft as bad as bank robbery in Michigan community

Anyone who complains that local police officers don't take bicycle theft seriously would be envious of the situation in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale.

That's where two policemen cracked an hour-long string of three bike thefts earlier this month. It all started with a routine “traffic stop.” As a Ferndale police lieutenant explained it to the Detroit Free Press:

“We think going after a bike thief is just as important as nailing a bank robber, in terms of our residents’ feeling of security in their homes.”

3 thefts

In this case, a policeman stopped a 36-year-old man riding a bicycle as part of their investigation of a rash of bicycle thefts in recent weeks in the community. The man had a history of burglaries on his record. When he couldn't explain how he acquired the bike, the policeman confiscated the bike, but didn't have enough proof for an arrest.

About 40 minutes later, someone reported that a bicycle had been stolen by a man matching the description of the 36-year-old. Police searched for that man, and found him riding yet a third bike. He had ditched the one bike and stolen another. Three stolen bikes in an hour. Amazing.

The man faces arraignment on larceny from a building (a felony), and two counts of simple larceny. Perhaps this will stem the rash of bike thefts in Ferndale and Pleasant Ridge, at least for a while.

Register and Twitter

For the rest of us, we should remember to always lock our bikes and copy down the bicycle serial number so we can provide that to police just in case our bicycles are stolen. The serial number is usually located under the bottom bracket.

In addition, you can post your bicycle ID number at the Stolen Bicycle Registry, which currently has 8,173 serial numbers in its database. You can also check there to determine if the bike you're buying off Craigslist is stolen.

The Registry also offers a monthly Watch List of stolen bicycles by city, state and zipcode. It also started utilizing Twitter to help find stolen bikes in Tucson, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Chicago, San Diego and Philadelphia.