Bike theft steadily rises on campus
Bicycle thefts are on the rise around campus and surrounding locations causing some students to suffer the ill effects of lost possessions.
Typically, students at GCSU are not doing the stealing. Trends suggest the danger lies outside the campus community.
Detective Robert Butler with GCSU Public Safety deals with stolen bikes and other property on a regular basis.
“The majority (of bike thefts) are juveniles that are stealing the bikes,” he said. “They’ll walk through and they’ll actually see a bike that’s insecure and actually will take the bike. Sometimes it ends up in a pawn shop; sometimes it doesn’t.”
In some cases with stolen bikes, a passerby simply sees the bike and decides they will take it. This was the case with Sara Fleetwood, a senior whose bike has been stolen twice and recovered each time.
“My bike by no means has any monetary value. It cost me 16 dollars. I got it at a yard sale,” she said. “So I thought, you know, when mine got stolen, this has to be somebody who was just like, that is a funny bike.”
Fleetwood feels the increase in thefts is due to the increase in bike riding.
“Bike riding has become a lot more popular in the past few years I think, you know like, LiveStrong and people trying to be more environmentally friendly and it’s fun, good exercise; you look cool,” she said.
Repercussions, when convicted of stealing can range from minor to severe for those with a record.
“If it’s a juvenile, it’s still a misdemeanor offense. Very few consequences for a juvenile if it’s their first offense,” Butler said. “If it’s an adult and he has some type of record where he’s on parole or on probation, he can lose his freedom because he’s not supposed to be doing anything that results in an arrest and a theft by taking case would be an arrest.”
Most cases Butler sees involve bikes that are not securely locked up. People think they will only be a moment away from their bike and it will be fine.
In opposition to the norm, Marian Beasley, a senior, became the victim of bike theft while her bike was locked up.
“I just knew it was coming though. Everyday I would lock it to the porch rail,” she said. “It wouldn’t take much to steal my bike, even locked up.”
Securing the bike does not always prevent a theft. It is important to know certain details about the bike to aid police in the search.
“What I would recommend for anybody to do is if they would just record their serial numbers on the bike,” Butler said. “If it hit’s a pawn shop that has the type of software that Baldwin County has, then it will be recovered.”
Realistically, this offers little help to those unaware of the importance the serial numbers hold. It is easy to disregard the possibility of theft. Beasley ran into this issue after talking to an officer with the Milledgeville Police.
“Our officer was like, ‘Get the serial number and call it in,’ so I went and looked for mine and, you know, I had just recently thrown away the packet,” she said.
Beasley rode her bike everyday to campus and cannot afford a new one right now.
“When it was stolen, it was like, someone walked by our house, walked up to the house, had a vehicle or at least three people for a getaway and it’s just kind of like, that’s not fair. You can’t just take my bike,” Beasley said. “I think it’s how anyone would respond to injustice. It’s just not fair.”
For Fleetwood, the feelings of offense also linger.
“I don’t know about theft. What makes people think that like, I want this so that’s more important than the person who actually owns it,” she said.
Detective Butler wants to see the trend end.
“Sometimes we can get the bikes back, sometimes we don’t,” Butler said. “You’ve got to have the serial numbers though. You’ve got to have them.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 18 2007. Filed under News.
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