Tempe police are targeting bicycle thieves who have been stealing bikes, mostly from students, and selling them on Craigslist or eBay to support their drug habit, according to investigators.
Police launched the operation in downtown Tempe in mid-January and it has so far resulted in the recovery of more than 30 bicycles, bike parts valued at nearly $25,000 and three arrests, said Sgt. Mike Pooley, a Tempe police spokesman.
The Tempe police operation recognizes the importance of bicycles in a college town.
Authorities say that, rather than considering bicycle theft to be a typical misdemeanor crime, officers from Tempe and Arizona State University police are investigating theft rings, serving search warrants to recover stolen bikes and seeking felony trafficking in stolen property charges against suspects.
The Tempe crackdown comes as ASU police continue to target the chronic bike-theft problem with a combination of education, enforcement and providing safer places for owners to secure their bikes, Assistant Chief Jim Hardina said.
ASU features a “bike valet” near the student union where bicycles are watched for their owners. ASU also has been encouraging bicycle registration and is adding bicycle cages, where owners can store their bicycles safely.
Bicycle theft is a classic crime of opportunity, Hardina said.
“Less than two percent of the bikes stolen are locked properly,” he said. “We tell people, park your car, ride your bike, but that doesn’t work if your bike is stolen.”
Tempe police identified the three people arrested during “Operation Bike Peddler” as Loren Henderson, 46, Jeffrey Barthold, 51 and Brian Meier, 50.
“They are stealing $1,000 bikes and selling them for $150-$200,” Pooley said. “They are using the money to buy drugs and feed their addiction.”
In addition to finding bicycles and bicycle parts, police found electronics, drug paraphernalia, prescription drugs, heroin and methamphetamine when they served search warrants, he said.
Pooley urged bicycle owners, many of whom depend upon their bicycles as their primary means of transportation, to register them on the city’s website so that it would be easier for police to match stolen bicycles with their owners.
Pooley said police realize some of the bikes that investigators have recovered are stolen, but police have not been able to return them to their rightful owners because the serial numbers are not registered.
The most expensive bicycle stolen was valued at $11,000, Pooley said. He said many of the victims have been Arizona State University students who need their bicycles to get to class or to off-campus jobs.
“It creates a hardship for them” when bicycles are stolen, Pooley said.
Firstly, TEMPE PD was the one who cracked this bike theft ring; why is ASUPD even mentioned (other than to tout their “bike valet program”)?
Secondly, ASUPD is NOT “investigating theft rings, serving search warrants to recover stolen bikes and seeking felony trafficking in stolen property charges against suspects”. There is ONE competent Detective left in Investigations (since the only other competent Detective left for another agency) who doesn’t have the resources to do all these things himself. The other “Detective”, Jennifer Bryner spends her workday day taking long lunches/BSing with other employees, not actually doing any sort of investigative work.
This entire article is a prime example of how ASUPD attempts to piggyback off the legitimate police work done by Tempe PD.
According to command our primary goal as a state police department is bike theft prevention. I say this not out of malice, cynicism, but because that’s all we ever hear about and it’s the truth. I know this is beyond laughable to anyone with the title of Police Officer outside our agency. It’s laughed at by the majority of patrol within our agency.
We have more serious and dangerous issues concerning the ASU community that have nothing to do with bike theft. We are not equipped to handle these issues and command knows it. ASUPD struggles with the bike theft every year, how can you reasonably expect it to handle real policing issues?
Our crime prevention, the all important BAT report, (crime statistic generated report of where the majority of bike thefts are occurring), the majority of patrol directives are all focused on catching bike thieves. How many geographical crime statistic maps will they look at before they figure out the data is useless, bike thefts happen everywhere on the campus all the time.
Tempe PD has the number of people, the practical police knowledge, and most importantly leadership that knows the value of employees, how to retain and train. Without that you get ASUPD, a annual truckload of inexperienced people spinning in circles pretending they know what they’re doing. The thieves are wise to it.
By concentrating so much our time, money, and personnel on property crime, while ignoring all the contributing factors to crimes against people we are missing the point. People should come before property, but when people have their head up their ass it looks like things get turned around.
Meanwhile…the chiefs of ASUPD are at a meeting on the fourth floor of the Fulton Center, Office of the President,
“I gave you people one god damn goal, one mission, get the fucking bike thieves. You failed me again, Tempe had to step in again and do your job.” Then there’s the blog pointing out years of your fuck ups making us all look like assholes! We need to do something!”
AZDPS busts a dangerous drug pill factory practically on our doorstep, Tempe PD busts an organized theft ring operating freely for years in our jurisdiction, there’s a theme here that hasn’t been uninterrupted for years.
Our department, ASUPD, has been struggling to attract and retain people at least as long as the chief has been here and it will only get worse as more departments start hiring and siphoning off any promise here for a competent agency.
No reasonable and talented officer will stay here very long, every time I turn around I hear about a half dozen people attempting to get out. Money is one detractor, but leadership outweighs that issue for most.
If the bobbleheads in charge of ASUPD knew how to run a police department instead of defunding one the public would be reading about the Arizona State University Police Department doing it’s own police work instead of other agencies. With old and new employees constantly leaving the department like it’s a rape dungeon positive change isn’t likely.
ASUPD swims in the wake of Tempe PD. When you can’t run a performing agency and run off experienced people this is what your police department is reduced to. Our talent went to work for other agencies and now we are tagging our name on to the successful efforts of other agencies. Sounds really ethical. Amazing integrity. Someone should write a blog about it, oops!
It’s just like everything else our department does. We have had individuals get something done every now and then. More often than not it requires a team effort to be successful.
That’s why DPS finds the drug manufacturers on our doorstep, not the one guy we call a narcotics unit because he hangs out with the Tempe PD narcotics unit, taskforce, or whatever. We don’t have a single team, just individuals who come and go to be part of a team someplace else.
It’s unethical to take credit for someone else’s work. Law enforcement isn’t a class group project scenario where a few people do all the work and everyone else takes credit for it.
Keeping the doors open and making it look like we have a functioning police department is one thing. Getting a capable team together, doing the research, and catching criminals is quite another. It’s just easier to take credit for our neighbor’s hard work, but what about integrity? Some of us are concerned about this, some aren’t.
We should be the ones making these investigations happen and making the arrests, but that requires staffing, retention, teamwork, trust, incentives, all things we don’t have or have in short supply.
Piggyback is one way to say it. When the Tempe Chief of Police is going to the Fulton Center to brief them on Safety Concerns for the ASU Community and what he’s doing about it then I would say his department is there to be the foundation of policing for ASU, not a supplement.
This article says so much on this issue, play the video and weep.
http://www.kpho.com/story/24759408/asus-new-task-force-on-student-safety-meets-for-first-time