Trek District - theft witnessed

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on July 18, 2011 at 10:22pm

Here's a link for one that was snatched on March 4th.

 

Do you have a (temporary) license plate number on that truck?

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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on July 18, 2011 at 10:36pm

And here's the only report we've received so far of a bike stolen at Pitchfork:

http://chicago.stolenbike.org/node/191438

Your concern is appreciated but unfortunately there's nothing really actionable here-- people need to start catching thieves in the process of stealing a bike for there to be any follow-up.

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Permalink Reply by K on July 18, 2011 at 11:00pm

Unfortunately no, it would have been too obvious that I was trying to get a picture of the plate at the time... I'm hoping someone here would be able to enhance (a la CSI) the image.

Kevin Conway said:

Here's a link for one that was snatched on March 4th.

 

Do you have a (temporary) license plate number on that truck?

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Permalink Reply by S on July 19, 2011 at 9:29am

Ken said:

Unfortunately no, it would have been too obvious that I was trying to get a picture of the plate at the time... I'm hoping someone here would be able to enhance (a la CSI) the image.

There is no enhance ala CSI out there.  If it's not in picture, there's no way to zoom and sharpen things to make it visible.  Sharpening an image might help a little but not much and in real life zooming into an image gets you big blocky images like something out of the old school nes games.

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Permalink Reply by dan brown on July 19, 2011 at 9:33am

also-i would be suspicious of temporary license plates (do-h).

IMHO-if someone is shady enough to be dealing in hot/fenced merchandise; how likely are they to

use a fake (or altered or 'transferred' from another vehicle) tag to further prevent apprehension ?

 

DB

 

p.s. when I lived in the suburbs and saw a temporary tag...my thoughts were : "nice...someone just got a new car...". Now that I live in the ghetto, the thoughts are more like "haha...that thing will be repo'd by this saturday..."

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Permalink Reply by K on July 19, 2011 at 9:36am

Yeah, I suppose I'm better off calling 911 in reporting a theft in progress next time around.

 

I'm sure the truck and it's owner will be using that area as a common exchange site in the future.

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on July 19, 2011 at 10:34am

Has anyone ever heard of this thing called craigslist?

 

People do sell legitimate used bikes all the time and many people prefer to meet in an open public place for personal safety rather than their own homes.

 

I'd personally assume this is a legitimate flipper or restorer before jumping to the conclusion this bike was stolen and this is a fence.  The vast majority of used property that changes hands is NOT stolen -even in this wicked city.  Is it going to come down to a world where only licensed businesses are allowed to buy/sell anything?  Posts like this one tend to make a little part of my soul shrivel up and die. 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Alex on July 19, 2011 at 2:45pm

You didn't witness a theft.

 

You saw one guy hand off a bike to another guy, who put it in a truck (maybe the truck was stolen too!).

 

You have no idea what the circumstances were.

 

If you had called 911, that would have been a waste of that 911 operator's time, and if on the off chance they actually sent a squad over, a waste of CPD time and resources. 

 

You are apparently, however, very confident at your ability to estimate people's heights. 

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Permalink Reply by Vilda on July 19, 2011 at 5:00pm

Here's what I know. Call the cops. This is a public site so a shit bag bike thief could and likely does read this. So instead of posting a pic or putting it up for debate. Call the cops. It's there job to handle a suspicious situation. And if it turns out to be nothing than thank heaven people like Alex and James are there to say I told you so. And if it's a shit bag bike thief selling or giving his winnings to his partner than maybe the cops can help. This is why we have cops. There are enough idiots that keep voicing dumb ass opinions about their ideas on crime to make all the "dumb biker" stereotypes seem true.

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