12 ms·
A Seattle vigilante who beats the police to bike thieves
- Paul_S 10y agoThis is such a frustrating issue. I understand that from a financial perspective it makes no sense to try and stop people stealing bikes or vandalising cities and I'm falling over myself trying to find a justification for doing so anyway but has any city ever tried?
- eikenberry 10y agoNew York had a big anti-vandalism push as part of Giuliani's "broken window" based campaign to clean up the city.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoOn this scale, whether it makes financial sense shouldn't matter. Law enforcement is a public service, not a profit initiative.
- tikhonj 10y agoNo, economics still applies because we only have a finite amount of resources—funding, equipment, officers—and we need to distribute them intelligently to cover all the functions we expect from law enforcement. It wouldn't make sense for a small police department to spend $1 million on bike thefts which add up to $10,000 stolen a year (and nobody injured/killed): it would be a terrible use of tax dollars and would probably require neglecting other police duties. Even though government service is not run for profit, it still has to deal with scarcity, so economic and financial considerations still apply.
- allendoerfer 10y agoUsually those problems have the same root. Denmark was mentioned. It is not like the allocated better, they do better in almost every regard.
- bdr 10y agoI think a probabilistic argument makes sense. You don't have to pursue 100% of bike thefts to discourage them.
- crispyambulance 10y agoBikes are just like any other stolen item. They typically end up with brokers who warehouse and distribute these goods in ways that are hard to scrutinize. The problem is that there will always be crackheads and there will always be sketchy people that willing to transact stolen goods. Its like a cosmic-scale version of wack-a-mole. The best way to deal with bike theft is for owners to get wise about how they store and lock their bikes. Some amount of common sense about bike choice helps too. If you can afford a $3000 bike you can also afford a secondary $100 bike that doesn't make bike thieves salivate while you're grocery shopping.
- Animats 10y agoIf the brokers aren't being found, the police aren't doing their job. GPS trackers for bicycles are now down to $47.[1] When you find more than one stolen bike at one location, you've got something. This worked for cars. Lojack, with their hidden transponder, caused a significant reduction in auto thefts. Lojack claims a 90% recovery rate. The main problem for bicycles is battery life. Someone needs to design a system which needs almost no power until the bicycle is stolen. Lojack, which is a pre-GPS technology, does something like that. Their unit normally isn't transmitting. It's just listening to FM broadcast station subcarriers for its own serial number. When a car with Lojack is stolen, Lojack, which is plugged into police stolen car databases, has their FM stations broadcast the serial number repeatedly. The addressed Lojack unit wakes up and starts transmitting. Lojack makes a deal with police departments to put Lojack receivers in police cars. These light up when there's a transmitting stolen car in range. You could do this today by connecting a digital pager to a GPS/GSM location transmitter. The GPS/GSM unit is normally off, and only turns on when the pager wakes it up. You can get six weeks of standby time on a digital pager easily. Add a power-from-motion device and you could probably keep the pager running indefinitely, as long as the bike gets some use. OK, IoT crowd, get moving. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-GPS-Tracker-GPS305-Real-time/dp/B00MM01DCA https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-GPS-Tracker-GPS305-Real-time/...
- crispyambulance 10y agoCar-theft is alive and still doing quite well in spite of lojack and other technologies. Admittedly, cars today are harder to steal for a wide variety of reasons. Knowing approximately where the bike is is only 1/3 of the battle. You still have to physically put your hands on it and remove it from whoever has it. I applaud the intent of a bike "lojack" but good luck getting the police to lift a finger when your bike tells you where it is. That 50 bucks is better spent on a good U-lock upgrade.
- ScottBurson 10y agoActually it does make financial sense. Here's why. Bike theft in many places now has an enormous reward/risk ratio not because the reward is large but because the risk is so minuscule -- small enough to be considered zero. People tend to think that the police would have to solve and prosecute a large fraction of bike thefts to deter the crime effectively, but that's probably not true. Any chance at all of being caught would cut the reward/risk ratio by two or three orders of magnitude, at least. Because the reward for the crime is relatively small, compared to other things a professional thief could be doing, that is likely to serve as a sufficient deterrent in many cases. I've read that this has been tried somewhere and seems to work, though I don't recall the details. A municipality just needs to dedicate a small fraction of its resources to solving as many bike thefts as possible. Even if that's a small fraction of the total, it can be enough to turn the tide.
- zerooneinfinity 10y agoSame problem with people hopping turnstyles in the 80's. They increased the severity of the punishment and lo behold the crime went down.
- brianwawok 10y agoSome people were having trouble with guys on the corner smoking pot in the 80s. So we started the war in drugs. Lo And behold crime went down.... Oh wait..
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoI know you're being facetious, but it's much more difficult to evaluate risk/rewards ratio for drug use, and the motivation for engaging in it is less linked to this ratio than for other crimes. Though I say that, and think back to Prohibition... which didn't involve the same addictive properties to which I'd attribute these properties of the War on Drugs, so I doubt myself.
- brianwawok 10y ago
- ilaksh 10y agoI am asking this 100% seriously. I have never actually seen police helping anyone -- only seen them harrassing or extorting money (outright or via bogus traffic citations). I have come to the conclusion that the idea of a police force that is really there to help citizens may be a myth.
- bfuller 10y agoSomeone posted a link in this thread about the Austin pd breaking up a bicycle theft ring. The problem is, as with all theft, unless someone witnesses the crime as it is occurring by the time the cop gets to the scene it is too late to find the bike. Experienced thieves will scope out bikes ahead of time and have a place to stash them quickly, and even if the police do arrive quickly, are they supposed to interrogate every person on a bike to check if it is stolen? Basically they need to focus on these theft rings that steal bikes en masse and move them to another region to sell. I have on more than 3 or 4 times seen a truck with the bed FULL of bikes I'm talking stacked 6 feet high with a cage around the bed. Where did all those bikes come from? And ive never seen a decent bike in the stack. Mostly children's bikes (easiest to steal as I imagine children don't secure their bikes very well) and Wal Mart beaters.
- barrkel 10y agoThe usual way to find organised thieves is with a decoy bike in a high theft area, with surveillance and police lying in wait.
- rangibaby 10y ago> are they supposed to interrogate every person on a bike to check if it is stolen? This is what Japanese cops do. Every bike is registered to a name, and they radio to check the registered name and frame number against your id. It takes about five minutes. My bike has been stolen three times (probably by different people) and they recovered it twice and caught the thief the third time.
- throwaway7767 10y agoWow, sounds like being a cyclist in Japan is hell. I've had a bike stolen, and it sucks, but not nearly as much as it would suck to be stopped by police all the time and expected to prove ownership of my bike.
- rangibaby 10y agoIt's a hassle, but the check is over in 5 minutes. Show your photo id (which Japanese usually carry, and foreigners are required to) and if the names match you're good to go. If the bike isn't reported stolen and your ID is good they'll send you on your way. If it's reported stolen you'll have to go to the police station to do some paperwork even if it is your bike.
- bfuller 10y agoSomeone posted a link in this thread about the Austin pd breaking up a bicycle theft ring. The problem is, as with all theft, unless someone witnesses the crime as it is occurring by the time the cop gets to the scene it is too late to find the bike. Experienced thieves will scope out bikes ahead of time and have a place to stash them quickly, and even if the police do arrive quickly, are they supposed to interrogate every person on a bike to check if it is stolen? Basically they need to focus on these theft rings that steal bikes en masse and move them to another region to sell. I have on more than 3 or 4 times seen a truck with the bed FULL of bikes I'm talking stacked 6 feet high with a cage around the bed. Where did all those bikes come from? And ive never seen a decent bike in the stack. Mostly children's bikes (easiest to steal as I imagine children don't secure their bikes very well) and Wal Mart beaters.
- Zigurd 10y agoEvery college town has at least one theft ring that operates this way. If you see a beat up truck full of bikes on the highway, it's one of these guys moving bikes from where he stole them to where he is selling them. Finding this activity is as easy as falling off a log. If you want to try this for yourself, you are literally minutes away from meeting a bike thief. He'll have 10-20 bikes on the cheapest locks on a campus bike rack, especially this time of year, or he'll set up a sketchy meeting as in this story. WTF are cops doing if they are not busting patently obvious theft rings? Making this kind of bust should be utterly basic police work. It should be what the new guy does on his first day. Oh, right, they are raising revenue and fighting the long ago lost Drug War or looking for non-existent "terrorists." This is why policing has utterly disconnected from quality of life and middle class concerns.
- HaloZero 10y agoI imagine it's public perception of the issues as well. If cops aren't stopping bike thieves nobody really cares, but if they fail to stop a statistically improbable terrorist attack in their area then it's far far worse for them. They'll get so much shit and flak for it, especially the higher ups. Jobs will change, so they priorities are shifted not toward what's useful but what the public deems consequential.
- tamana 10y agoWhy assume that? May people have been robbed and are angry. many more people have a rational fear of theft and are upset. The people care.
- jschwartzi 10y agoI think it's less general malaise and more that the police don't care that much about cyclists.
- buzzybee 10y agoPolice are there for crowd control first, public image second. Sometimes they can do good work, but that really isn't how they've been set up. At least, that's what the histories I've read say.
- Practicality 10y agoInteresting. I always wondered what motivated this personality type. Seems that they get a high from it. (Not that I am bothered by it, I am glad they do).
- xendo 10y agoHere is an idea. Given a Craigslist listings and Tensor Flow deep learning whatever, build a tool for searching stolen bikes -- batman style.
- oh_sigh 10y agoAll you need to do is look for bikes that are being sold for far less than their fair value
- tamana 10y agoThis doesn't happen. Dealers aren't stupid. They sell stolen bikes for market price.
- brewdad 10y agoIt can happen if you are willing to buy directly from the meth-head under a bridge at an odd hour of the day. $20 can get you a nice carbon fiber racing bike under the right conditions and if you personally have no morals.
- auxym 10y agoKnowingly buying stolen goods is also a crime. And if you're buying a CF racer for a 20, you sure know it's stolen.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jacalata 10y agoDid you read the article? The guy gives very specific details about stolen bikes being sold for well below market value.
- analogmemory 10y agoThe people selling stolen bikes often don't put much information, so you'd get lots of false positives.
- xendo 10y agoHere is an idea. Given a Craigslist listings and Tensor Flow deep learning whatever, build a tool for searching stolen bikes -- batman style.
- vonklaus 10y agoPretty interesting & fun story. The article itself was did go a bit over the top beleaguring the heroic super-hero nature of the person, but if you can read around the purple prose & redundant praise there were some cool pieces of info: - The bike index is an interesting concept, working around the balkanized nature of PD databases. - The actual narrative was quite funny & interesting. - How pervasive an issue this is escaped me as a non-biker. I didn't realize how expensive bikes are and how often they get ripped off.
- belovedeagle 10y agoFor those not in the Seattle area, it may be useful to understand that Seattle PD is in the middle of a months- or years- long work slowdown - a police strike, when you do away with euphemisms - in response to federal oversight of the department. They will barely respond to most crimes, so rising vigilantism is hardly surprising.
- jonchang 10y agoHa ha, oh wow: "We found that SPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force that violates the Constitution and federal law. Our investigation further raised serious concerns that some SPD policies and practices, particularly those related to pedestrian encounters, could result in discriminatory policing." https://www.justice.gov/crt/investigation-documents https://www.justice.gov/crt/investigation-documents
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoHow old is that? There's supposed to be some new head honcho that will fix things.
- eyelidlessness 10y agoThere's always some new head honcho that'll fix things. The FOP won't have anything to do with fixing things. They're above the law.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- eyelidlessness 10y agoWhile this characterization is somewhat accurate (they're still discriminatory in where they choose to show presence and enforce after all), even a typical run of the mill city cop shop isn't going to investigate bike thefts. You might as well ask them to find your Creedence tapes while you're at it.
- emmelaich 10y agoI had my bike stolen while a poor student at University. It was my only mode of transport I had and it was the best bike I have ever owned. As the article mentions it's true that bike ownership can have a emotional aspect that other things don't. I even remember seeing the guy who probably stole it. He was wearing a greatcoat even though the weather wasn't cold. He would needed a greatcoat to hide the giant boltcutters he would have needed to cut through the very good chain I used to lock my bike up. Still bitter.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bfuller 10y agoI cycle about 40-60 miles around my major metro most days, and I also see a guy pretty often cycling in a big heavy coat, even in 100 degree (f) heat. I wonder if he is a thief.
- eyelidlessness 10y agoMaybe just a goth?
- bfuller 10y agodefinitely not for any fashion purpose. its a big brown winter coat.
- zodiakzz 10y agoWell, is he on a different bike every time?
- bfuller 10y agoNo, but why would he be? It makes the most sense to scout for bikes on one bike and when you find a score stash it as soon as possible, not ride around town leisurely on a stolen bike
- 10y ago
- danblick 10y agoI'm disappointed this article wasn't about Seattle's true superhero, Phoenix Jones. https://youtu.be/t2pNxzmZDbs https://youtu.be/t2pNxzmZDbs
- loeg 10y agoPhoenix is by all accounts not helping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones#Arrest_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones#Arrest_record
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoYou mean he has more than a single arrest with no charges?
- loeg 10y ago"Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes has called Jones a "deeply misguided individual."
- X-Istence 10y agoHad my bike stolen when I was in college. Still miss it, at the time the cops didn't give two shits.
- bfuller 10y agoMy friend recently had his bike stolen. It was recovered after it was thrown over a fence of a local business. The thief most likely didnt know how to ride a fixed gear with no brakes, crashed, and ditched the bike.
- NLips 10y agoA bike with no brakes is dangerous. Almost good riddence.
- quantumhobbit 10y agoFixed gear bikes have the brakes built in. Just stop peddling.
- NLips 10y ago1) The vast majority of braking power comes from braking the front wheel. Applying backwards pressure to the pedals does nothing, which means a fixie's braking power is considerably limited. 2) Additionally, the braking is much smoother and more easily regulated with real brakes. 3) Stiction is stronger than dynamic friction. If you brake the rear wheel just below the point at which the wheel skids on the ground, you're disapating more power than if you skid the rear wheel i.e. you'll stop faster not skidding than skidding. These reasons are why in many places (e.g. the UK) a front brake is legally mandatory. Edit: spelling
- bfuller 10y agoor put your feet on the ground
- kpil 10y agoI recommend diving face first into the first available wall. That is by far the fastest way to reduce the speed. If a wall is not situated conveniently enough, old ladies are surprisingly sturdy, and will stop even a high speed fixed-gear hipster at the reasonable cost (to the cyclist) of a broken hip or a few legs or arms.
- habosa 10y agoI always wonder where this never ending market for stolen bikes is. I live in SF I'm on my 3rd bike in two years, this time I learned my lesson and bought a beater. I'm also not sure what I want done about it. On one hand, feeling that your personal property is unsafe makes it very hard to build a healthy community so it's worth policing small thefts. On the other hand, I know the cops around here have way bigger issues to tackle.
- 0x38B 10y agoMinor, but: the URL has a bunch of params like a user ID from a mailing list. Is it standard practice to remove these on HN? I wasn't sure but thought I'd mention it.
- troymc 10y agoIt seems to me that the connecting of bikes on Bike Index with bikes for sale on various online marketplaces could be, at least partially, automated. It seems like a fun challenge, especially the pictures-only marketplaces...
- bfuller 10y agoLike I posted somewhere else in this thread, people fencing stolen goods usually list a bike that is different from, but similar to the bike (or any other item) they are selling. When contacted, they'll say they already sold that bike, but can gladly sell this other bike they have that is similar, and usually for a lower price that almost guarantees a purchase.
- prayerslayer 10y agoMUMEN RIDER!
- caf 10y agoBut do you know 5miles? Or Letgo? Or OfferUp or Neerbuy or Saily or VarageSale? These sites are a visual marketplace, showing pictures of an item but often including few words to describe it. They offer the seller anonymity while making it hard for police or others to search the web for keywords. Lost a bike? You could spend hours scrolling through pictures across more than a half-dozen sites trying to track it down. Then do it again the next day. These sites may sell legit merchandise. But they’re also the 21st-century way to fence stolen goods. This makes it sound an awful lot like these sites are knowingly - or at least with a Lucille Bluth wink - catering to people fencing stolen goods.
- bfuller 10y agoI seriously doubt their business model is based on fencing stolen goods but I would be interested to hear the customer service directors excuse for why this is not the case.
- j28xfc5qsc 10y agoI don't work for one of those apps, but have used one. I like it because it is a lower-friction way to buy and sell items. I can take pictures of items in my garage with my phone and quickly list them without going to my desktop and writing up a Craigslist post. It's the same old story of Uber/Tinder/etc making something easy to do on your phone.
- bfuller 10y agoHere is an old Reddit AMAA of a bike thief that sheds some light on the business and the reason the thieves are motivated to steal the bikes
- s3b 10y agoPriceonomics did a story on the stolen bike problem : https://priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles https://priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-st...
- todd8 10y agoI've had three bikes stolen, but none in the traditional way of coming back to a bike rack only to find the bike missing. Two were stolen from my garage by workers, these were by people with jobs and not by homeless crack heads. One was a $2500 road bike and the other was my mountain bike. The other a multi-speed street bike was lost to a mugging (like a bike-jacking) by an organized bike theft gang of around eight that attacked me all at once. (Stay clear of suspicious groups of cyclists in isolated areas where one spry rider is riding double.) The workers didn't get my nice tri-bike because it was in the house attached to a wind-trainer. It's all very irritating; the value of the bikes to the bike thief is so low compared to the cost of replacing them.
- 2bluesc 10y agoAnyone have experience with insurance companies like Velosurance[0] or claims against renters (or homeowners with a reasonable deductible) insurance for bike theft? [0] https://velosurance.com/ https://velosurance.com/