Score One For Us

From "Tempe Campus Bike Thief Sentenced To State Prison":

An Arizona judge sentenced a 49-year-old Phoenix man to more than three years in state prison last week for theft and trafficking of bicycles stolen from ASU’s Tempe campus, ASU Police Cmdr. Jim Hardina said on Monday.

Donald George Candea was arrested on Feb. 26 after ASU student James Weiser located his own stolen bike on Craiglist and helped to thwart a trafficking operation on campus.

Following on the heels of Michelle's epic Craigslist recovery (which got a nice fat mention in The Stranger) it has been a good couple of weeks for catching thieves ...

Also, thanks to Marti for pointing me towards The Problem of Bicycle Theft, from the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.

It's pretty hard to nail down a well-written, comprehensive look at the bike theft problem - let alone find one with references - which is why this is my favorite link for a while. Covers everything from locking schemes to RFID to registries. Good stuff.

Michelle's Epic Story Of Bike Recovery Win

This is a story of one person's epic bike recovery. It is waaaay too long and detailed to reprint here, but I wanted to point it out because it illustrates a lot of the major hurdles I'm trying to address with the SBR.

In short:

-Michelle gets her bike stolen.
-Michelle goes on a PR and Craigslist rampage to find her bike.
-Michelle finds her bike on Craigslist. 175 miles away, in Portland.
-Michelle and friends bait the fishy, fake-name-using Craigslist asshat who has her bike.
-The Craigslist asshat gets spooked and sells her bike to someone else.
-Michelle and friends go totally flipped out, ninja-deathsquad on the guy, find him and gets the cops involved. Cops already know him! ZOMGLOL.
-After nine billion years of burreaucratic runaround, Michelle gets her bike back.
-The craigslist asshat is charged with theft and everybody wins.

And that's the short version. There's miles more that I can't even begin to cover in her full explanation, including the part where they find Craigslist Asshat's ad (on Craigslist, natch) seeking " ... a good Christian lady to straighten him out" and where Craigslist asshat threatens to sue them. For libel and defamation. Srsly.

My point is this: Michelle's story hits upon a lot of the issues that I'm trying to help address with the SBR, like bikes moving cities. Lack of central registration. Red tape with cops. Lack of universal searching ability, and so on.

I'm glad Michelle got her bike back, and she gets free Death To Bike Thieves stickers.

p.s. See also: Cycle of Justice in Seattle's The Stranger
p.p.s. Also - there's a fantastic radio interview with Michelle over on Too Beautiful To Live!