(Photo by Roger Averbeck)
Quick thinking by a southwest Portland resident has resulted in a local shop being able to recover two bikes that were stolen from them last week.
Roger Averbeck was walking on SW Barbur Blvd near Capitol Hill Road when he spotted a man riding a bike that looked familiar. It was the same bike he recalled seeing on our story last week about two new bikes that were stolen from in front of Southwest Bicycle.
Averbeck, a private security guard who also happens to be a dedicated neighborhood transportation activist, thought the bike looked suspicious so he quickly snapped a photo (above). And he didn’t stop there: he followed the man to a nearby apartment complex. Averbeck didn’t confront the suspect but he took down the address and then called Southwest Bicycle with the information.
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Southwest Bicycle employee Nate Gibson rolled over to the apartment complex and found not only the bike pictured in Averbeck’s photo, but the other one they’d had stolen as well. The two bikes were a Biria City Classic ($599 retail value) and an EVO City Classic ($379 retail value).
Southwest Bicycle owner Dan Houghton told us last night that Gibson found both bikes, unlocked, leaning against a wall. Instead of trying to take them back, Gibson called the police. “Someone did try to leave with one of the bikes,” Houghton said, “but Nate was on the phone with police describing him so he decided to leave without the bike” When the police showed up they took the bikes and they’re now back at the shop getting a few minor repairs. (Incidentally, Houghton shared, the police who responded said the apartment building is known, “to be full of drug addicts and sex offenders.”)
Like stolen bike recovery stories? We’ve got tons more of them in our archives.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org
Nate and Roger sure keep an eye out for the neighborhood.
Nice work. I saw a similar situation last week while on N. Interstate Ave, except the guy on the suspicious bike (higher-end road frame two-sizes too small) had a cohort following him on a spray-painted old mountain-bike. I couldn’t figure out how to get a picture, even a good mental one, with out creating a confrontational situation.
Understandable, my boss got attacked by 3 homeless dirtbags downtown a couple days ago for taking a photo of someone cooking heroin in her tent.
I think the next mayor had better make this homeless problem priority one.
I’m not worried about the homeless, I’m worried about the thieves and thugs…
Uh, these bike thieves were not homeless. But yeah, there are a lot of people who need help.
Can you expound?
How would you feel if a stranger took a photo of you in your home without your permission? What is the point of your comment?
That’s a backhand short of the needed cowboy action I referred to last week. I’m kidding. Sort of. Nice work, Roger. Good on you for taking the time and action to win one for the good guys.
Gold Star for all three of you guys, Averbeck, Gibson and Houghton. What arrogance, indifference to consequences of basic ethics and the law, that someone in a small neighborhood, would steal new bikes from a bike shop, and then apparently have very little hesitation about riding them in the neighborhood where they were stolen.
If there’s any news that the police will try to positively identify the thief and arrest them, that would be good to know.
I’d add indifference to common sense to your list.
Is the last sentence of the article really necessary?
What, that BP has tons of stolen bike recovery stories in their archives?
Or do you mean the quote from the police about the type of behavior they’ve seen at the apartment complex?
I mean the disparaging remarks about a group of people that contributes nothing to the story. The article would have been stronger without it.
Sex offenders get such a bad rep in our society. What’s up with that?
That’s exactly why I am uncomfortable saying “the people who live in that building are sex offenders” even if many of them are not.
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.
Then it’s a sex offender?
Goodness no, it’s a duck.
Seriously though, there’s nothing disparaging about stating that a building is known to house sex offenders. If several sex offenders have registered addresses in a certain area, that’s just a fact. It’s also public information. “Sex offenders live here” is not offensive.
Granted, the way Jonathan wrote it sort of implies a negative association, but only if you’re set on twisting his words a little.
Then it’s an irrelevant duck. What’s your point? Are you arguing that it does add something to the story?
It’s an offhand comment by the officer, who might as well have been telling you what he ate for lunch.
I had a duck sandwich for lunch.
“…I mean the disparaging remarks about a group of people…” hello, kitty
Apparently you have in mind, this line from the story:
“…the police who responded said the apartment building is known, “to be full of drug addicts and sex offenders.”)…” bikeportland
There may be some people that aren’t drug addicts, sex offenders or thieves, in the apartment building spoken of. Casual, disparaging remarks about the building being “full” of sordid characters, when it may be only a small percentage of residents causing the problems, may unfairly impact some of the good people living in the building.
Otherwise…neighbors kind of need, and want to know the type of people living in their neighborhood, towards helping deal with problems of theft and so on.
To clarify — I would not take issue with a statement like: “Police said they’d recovered a lot of stolen bikes from the building recently.” or “Police said they’d been getting a lot of calls about the complex.” That’s much different than “Police say the building is full of degenerate scum.”
you just stated that sex offenders and drug addicts are degenerate scum…
She said the police said that, paraphrasing.
Why do you ask? Should we, like the police, ignore the crime-ridden area? Nk, thanks. I bike by the complex multiple times per week. Now my safety sense js heightened and I will be safer.
us versus them, kitty. gotta keep stirring the pot.
Yes it is necessary. Being PC just enables these folks.
Which specific folks are you referring to? Or do you just mean anyone who happens to live in that building?
BTW, my comment has exactly nothing to do with being PC.
the only thing I didn’t like about the last sentence was that they didn’t state the name or location of the apartment complex so I can know to stay extra vigilant around there…
What I didn’t like is that the police know that there are a significant number of people involved in criminal activities and they can’t do anything about it.
a significant number of people involved in criminal activities? where? they didn’t state that any of that was happening at the apartments in the story… although their choice of words may cause most to assume such…
Because being drug addicts and sex offenders are actually just different lifestyles rather than being crimes, right?
Adding that last sentence gave the article some weight.
?
It was having no trouble holding my attention all the way through. I’m with Hello, Kitty.
All it takes is just one drag and…presto…bike thief.
Were the police able to lift any usable fingerprints from the stolen bikes? (ROFL as if they take bike theft seriously enough to perform an investigation.)
I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the tape deck though. Or the Creedence.
“Lifting prints” is actually quite difficult and time-consuming – it’s not like CSI. After my home was burglarized, a PPB tech told me all about it as he worked. After an hour or so, he was only able to lift a single “partial print” which ended up not being useful.
I would think hard chrome and enamel surfaces would be likely to yield a usable print from lifting under the top tube, stem, or by the seatpost. It might be time consuming, but you can probably spot the prints without powder. Whether it had been smudged, or belonged to someone else is another thing.
No effort by the police to arrest the culprits. So no reason for them not to repeat the crime.
Since the Multnomah County DA won’t seriously prosecute the thieves, the police don’t bother to make a pointless arrest.
Bingo. Until we start giving these slimeballs some serious prison time this is going to be like Groundhogs Day. I’d put $100 on the fact that if we start handing out 3 year sentences for bike theft the dirtbags will head to a softer target.
“…if we start handing out 3 year sentences for bike theft…” Endo
Sentences to be served out in what way by the convicted? Already costs too much money to incarcerate people having been convicted. Everybody by now must have heard stories of people being locked up for various crimes, and then let go for lack of space in the jail or prison to keep them, laughing at us as they leave.
Dilemmas like this are the kind of thing that Sheriff Arpaio’s response to them, led him to be subject to a kind of folk hero status, for his innovative bare bones, comparatively harsh style of imprisonment facilities. Not to necessarily suggest his idea was an overall great idea. People get frustrated though, and after so long, even not so good ideas can start to seem good.
The bottom line is, that’s incredibly expensive to do, and there simply isn’t money in the state budget to do it. And almost all those people will end up relapsing into being a career criminal.
Real drug/mental illness treatment is the answer.
You think bike thieves suffer from mental illness? BS, they’re scumbags who move to the most lenient places to commit crime. If we lock up bike thieves on a 3 year minimum sentence they will almost certainly head somewhere else.
Completely untrue. Prison terms do not deter crime. Never have. They only make the situation worse for all concerned.
It costs about $30,000 a year to lock someone up in jail, destroys their life, drives their family into poverty, and does nothing to prevent future crimes.
$90,000.00 of taxpayers money for $1,000.00 worth of bike theft? Not worth it.
It would probably be fairer to say that prison terms do not prevent all crime, or deter all criminals. There are lots of ways our prison system could be improved, but it does remove predators from the population, which is a good thing.
I carry a phone and pepper spray. Go ahead and get confrontational I say.
Be careful not to get those two items mixed up, I say!
FYI – that photo appears to have been taken on SW Evans St, where it hits Barbur.
To fill in a few facts: I saw the guy walking the bike southbound on Barbur near SW Evans at around 3:40 pm on Wednesday. I took the photo of him riding the bike westbound on SW Evans (between Barbur and SW 19th). Then I called the police to report the sighting of a possible / probable stolen bike. From a safe distance I followed him down to an apartment complex and called the police a 2nd time to report the location of the bike. I did not see the 2nd bike. Over an hour later I stopped at Southwest Bicycles to notify them of the sighting. Glad to hear that the bikes were recovered!
Roger Averbeck, you have an eagle eye. I doubt I would have even noticed…
Hooray for Roger.
Sweet!
Stating that a particular location may or may not be home to individuals of certain debatable moral choice issues is/are data that can be found in Portland police bureau online resources available to the public when sought, no? The real issue about that sentence is that it lumps our friendly bike their in with miscreants of no redeemable value, is that it? No, no…really, let’s get down to the nitty of the gritty here. Crime is caused when people have few or no visible survival options depending on the environment they may be forced to exist in. That’s the real deal. How can the ‘good’ in society lead the ‘bad’ to find what has positive meaning in their lives…family, friends, purpose. If nothing brings joy, nihilism seeks destruction as its purpose. What then? To paraphrase Batmans Alfred,”some people just want to see the world burn.”
Also – the theft occurred in Multnomah Village. You can be as paranoid as you want to about the cop’s ridiculous statement, but the theft didn’t happen at the apartment complex. The take away message is, there are bike thieves out there, they’re liable to do their thing anywhere, so lock up your bike no matter what. Being paranoid about people who live in lower income housing isn’t gonna keep your bike safe.