Yeah, pigs don’t like to be corrected. Or made to look like they don’t know what they’re doing.
And they absolutely hate ever doing anything about bicycle theft in particular.
I have heard that very often. I wonder if bikes are harder to track down than other property for some reason.
Given the number of times I’ve seen cops on police forums and r/protectandserve use terms like “bikefags”, I think it’s just the typical cop disgust of anything they perceive to be weak or effeminate.
smaller, therefore easier to hide. Not registered with a central authority like, for example, cars.
Because even if they look for it and find it, whoever is riding just says it theirs and there is literally nothing the police can do unless it was caught on video or there is a meaningful identifying feature like a serial number or something else specific and unique.
Seeing a sketchy guy with a black and red bike with the same bike rack you had isn’t enough to prove anything.
If an officer approached me riding my bike around and asked me to prove it’s mine, I couldn’t either despite not being a thief.
Anything that’s not serialized and recorded is basically impossible to find. If you have serial numbers then they can inform local pawn shops, but even then the shops probably aren’t checking serials for anything under $500.
And if the thief just sells it on craigslist then no one is checking serials.
I reported my bike stolen in college and I got a call the next day that they had found it parked in front of a nearby church.
It was stolen on a Sunday. I guess someone didn’t want to be late to service.
It probably depends a lot on where you live. My wife’s bike got stolen and she was woken up by police coming to check on it (one of the maintenance guys at our apartment noticed a man at 7-Eleven riding it and recognized it; came back running to check if it’s indeed missing and called the police). We fully expected the police would do nothing about it (it was the cheapest Walmart bike), but an hour later they called that they found the bike and have the culprit in custody. It did help that the bike was a girly mint green with a wicker basket, so they instantly recognized it when they saw it.
Then again, in San Francisco, when my wife got her car window smashed and wallet stolen (she was late for class and dropped her wallet under the car seat, didn’t stop to take it; but it wasn’t the wallet that caught the thieves’ attention, it was the breast pump bag that looked like a laptop bag; they threw it on the floor when they saw what it was), we never heard anything back from the police.
Fun fact. Cops on average have lower IQ and often fail literacy tests. Furthermore it appears that critical thinking is discouraged in the job, with candidates being selected who lack critical thinking abilities over those that have them.
Certain departments specifically have IQ tests, in order to ensure you aren’t smart enough to easily get a better job elsewhere.
This internet myth has got to die. ONE case in ONE department, a quarter century ago, does not mean it’s a practice.
