And they absolutely hate ever doing anything about bicycle theft in particular.
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.
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.
I have heard that very often. I wonder if bikes are harder to track down than other property for some reason.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, I don’t get that. Bicycling requires strength and endurance. It exposes you to the elements. Why is sitting in a cushy car something some people think as being more macho? Is it that you’re in control of a heavier and more powerful machine?
As a gay cyclist I know I’m doing something right by pissing off cops without doing anything wrong
smaller, therefore easier to hide. Not registered with a central authority like, for example, cars.
There is bike registration. https://bikeindex.org
It’s helped track down bike trafficking gangs sending bikes to Mexico. The police just don’t care at all
There’s plenty of cases where they don’t look for cars either.
Or the cops themselves just straight up steal the car themselves.
My wife’s car was ordered to be towed by, according to the impound lot, the police.
Neat thing was that there was no ticket with the car, no police station within 3 miles had a record of a ticket for her or the car, and the area she had parked had no signs that suggested it was illegal to park where she did, nor does the city have any ordinance about overnight parking.
Best we can figure, is a cop or the tow company that works with the city, just decided to tow a car for funsies and the 500 bucks it took to get it out of impound.
The police and every organization associated with them are corrupt to the core.
Which proves that cops really DO actually do their jobs.
Because protecting the property of the rich is the exact core purpose of policing.
