Police on the lookout for three suspects in Biketown vandalism case

Damage to Biketown station-1.jpg

(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland Police Bureau has a lead on the suspects in the Biketown vandalism case.

As many as 260 bike share bikes — about one quarter of the entire system — at 32 different Biketown stations were vandalized. Through camera footage, the police have obtained images of the vehicle and three of the suspects and they need the public’s help to further the case.

Below is the official statement, followed by images of the suspects and their car:

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If you have any information about this case, please call or email Det. Hergert at (503) 823-0400 or mitchell.hergert@portlandoregon.gov

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Justin M
Justin M
6 years ago

And to top it all off, wtf is up with suspect #1’s hair? It’s a mess. If you’re going to vandalize things and cause thousands of dollars of property damage at least take a few minutes first to look in the mirror and use a comb. #vándalofail

bikeninja
bikeninja
6 years ago

Are they wearing masks? Or are they just kinda pale and ugly?

Alan 1.0
6 years ago

Gotta get my eyes checked…right hand pic of suspect 2 looks like a cat.

Justin M
Justin M
6 years ago
Reply to  Alan 1.0

oh yeah. i totally see it.

Spiffy
6 years ago

typical poor quality photos of a screen-grab and lack of information…

if they know that’s a subaru then they know the model…

they look like a lot of typical portlanders…

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago

I’ve been saying “Enhance!” to my computer for several minutes, and I still can’t see who these people are. Anyone know a good computer mechanic? I think mine’s broken.

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

You need to talk to Hollywood technician. They are the only ones who know how to do that.

Racer X
Racer X
6 years ago

Is the “reported” vandal in the first photo (left side) wearing corporate branded sneakers (a Nike swoosh or Puma perhaps?)…?

Justin M
Justin M
6 years ago
Reply to  Racer X

Doesn’t look like Nike, but maybe Puma.

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago

Must have used a pinhole camera to get these photos.

Matt
Matt
6 years ago
Reply to  Smokey Bear

Pinhole cameras actually have perfect focus and infinite depth of field.

What you’re thinking of is a potato.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

Do they make people look like cats?

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago

Let us know the make/model of the surveillance camera so we can be sure NOT to buy one!

Mike Quigley
Mike Quigley
6 years ago
Reply to  Smokey Bear

All surveillance cameras seem to be the same. Technology can get a clear picture of a dime on the moon, but all a typical surveillance cameras can do is get a poor image of someone right next to it.

rachel b
rachel b
6 years ago

Subaru is a favorite for irritating-as-hell car modifiers. They enjoy being aholes, too. I’d start looking there.

chris
chris
6 years ago
Reply to  rachel b

i thought that was mostly the honda civic crowd, i always call them fart cars since that is what they sound like.

SE
SE
6 years ago

IF the perps see these pix, it’ll be like a license to do more … even they know
the photos are useless.

TonyT
6 years ago

It’s just too perfect that these Monkey Wrench Gang wannabes showed up in a car. Not that showing up on bike would have made this environmentally irresponsible vandalism okay. Just icing on the cake of their contradictory nonsense.

Art Fuldodger
Art Fuldodger
6 years ago
Reply to  TonyT

the shoes, the car…this thing is just oozing irony out of every idiotic crevice.

Christopher of Portland
Christopher of Portland
6 years ago

I know the cameras at MAX stations appear to be high quality Axis cameras. The footage from one of those would blow these images away. It would be nice if TriMet had video of them at the Clinton/12th station or others with Biketown nearby. Maybe they’re not pointed toward the Biketown racks.

Isaac Dick
Isaac Dick
6 years ago

I would not report if I know who did it. I will report if they actually stole bikes from the people. Nike is making too much money off the people. As long it’s bad for corporate then I ain’t going to help them making so much more money. They should track down bike theives just bad as they would do to find bomb suspects!

Adidas
Adidas
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

Nike doesn’t make money off of these bikes. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  Adidas

Do you think the sponsor the bikes out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course the profit from them (or at least think they do). Just not directly through revenue generated by the bikes themselves.

wsbob
wsbob
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

“Do you think the sponsor the bikes out of the goodness of their hearts? …” h kitty

Do you think that corporations, by way of the people working for them, and by way of the people working for them, have hearts. In other words, can and do at least some corporations, care about people that their products can have an effect upon.

Nike is of course, going to profit from sponsoring Portland’s bike share…or maybe the better word is ‘benefit’, from sponsoring bike share. Considering the focus on people’s lives that Nike products are directed to, making money off of those products seems ok to me. The company is far from perfect…the utilization of so much non-biodegradable material in its products, plus all the other miscellaneous waste involved in producing and selling its products, aren’t things to celebrate.

Aside from this, it’s great that people are inspired somewhat by the company’s products, to have more active lifestyles. It’s encouraging also, for anyone that travels near the nike campus out in beaverton, to see people riding the bike share bikes, which of course, visually, are the same as the bikes being used for Portland’s bike share.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  wsbob

Your comments here make it clear why you would not be a good choice for one of the factory monitors that are sent in to inspect working conditions and write reports for the non profits who have been dogging Nike (and others) for decades over the miserable conditions and terms of the workers who are behind these overpriced shoes and other gear.

Mike 2
Mike 2
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

You say over-priced. I see what the market is gladly willing to pay.

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
6 years ago
Reply to  wsbob

One of the main gains for Nike is that their sponsorship netted them the rights to create Biketown WHQ out in Beaverton and get it integrated into the Biketown PDX apps. According to the OregonLive article about this (http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2016/10/why_do_i_keep_seeing_biketown.html), Nike is solely responsible for Biketown WHQ costs and has hired a local bike shop to run the program. Motivate is not involved.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Keller

“One of the main gains for Nike…”

Can you elaborate? I’m not familiar with all the ways that branding works. I appreciate that Nike here seems to be piggybacking onto the (sort of public) Biketown brand, but from your post I gather there is more going on here?

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
6 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Keller

I’ll amend myself: “main gain” is too strong unless we set aside the already-discussed benefit of getting the Nike brand out there.

Isaac's Absent Dick
Isaac's Absent Dick
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

I would turn these losers in in a heartbeat for mucking up a great aspect of our multi-modal transportation system. Sadly, Isaac left me at home.

Isaac Dick
Isaac Dick
6 years ago

My point is: Why the police didn’t do the exact same with all those stolen bikes that were reported stolen? There are cameras everywhere. But then when it’s Nike’s, they finally do something about it? They should’ve checked all cameras when my bike got stolen, they didn’t. This is why I said they should be treated like bomb suspects.

If I was the policeman: I would make sure by checking cameras everywhere, that’s so unfair man. I’m still bitter about my stolen bikes.

soren
soren
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

Nike does not own those bikes anymore than US Bank owns Trimet buses. Every one of those bikes is publicly-owned by the city.

Mike 2
Mike 2
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

So someone stole your bike – denying you the ability to ride it, so therefore you would not turn in vandals who destroyed dozens of bikes denying dozens of people the ability to ride.

Yep. Seems completely logical.

shannon
shannon
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

Dude, they DID steal bikes from the people – they stole the use of these bikes from the people that use bike share – and a lot of locals use bike share. What they did was pathetic; a totally ineffectual strike against the “corporate man” that inconvenienced those who enjoy using this system. Black clad anti-corporatists could have funded bike share and kept it logo-free, but did they? Noooooo (I just typed that in the whiniest possible voice and I enjoyed it so much that I’m typing it again; Nooooo!).

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  shannon

Pathetic, yes, stealing, no. We have plenty of good words for what they did, but “stealing” isn’t one of them.

q
q
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

They didn’t steal the bikes, but they did steal people’s ability to use them, as shannon said.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  q

If I burn down my neighbor’s house because they won’t stop playing drums in the middle of the night, I haven’t “stolen” the use of their house, I’ve burned them out and stopped the incessant racket and cleaned up the neighborhood and made them stop. Please, lord, make them stop!!!

q
q
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

I have an arsonist friend I think I’ll ask about that, but not right away. He’s still getting over his disillusionment from signing up for match.com only to find it was a dating site.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  q

He might need some tinder to get things going.

Middle of the Road Guy
Middle of the Road Guy
6 years ago
Reply to  q

Maybe he should have gone with Tinder, and then Match.

Middle of the Road Guy
Middle of the Road Guy
6 years ago
Reply to  q

Dang it…did not see CK’s comment 🙁

Middle of the Road Guy
Middle of the Road Guy
6 years ago
Reply to  Isaac Dick

Nobody is making people use these bikes. Nobody is making people buy Nike products.

If someone finds value in what Nike charges for products, then who the heck are you to decide what is best for them?

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago

Exactly right. If you don’t like the prices, travel using some other method, or perhaps your own bike.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Smokey Bear

this criticism is not I don’t think about prices or travel options but about cultural dominance. See the link for my take:
https://bikeportland.org/2016/01/08/no-logo-nikes-sponsorship-shows-lopsided-funding-priorities-172155

Kyle Banerjee
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

In other words, it’s about ideology rather than things that affect people directly.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

Nike’s practices affect thousands, hundreds of thousands of people directly. Those who toil in their factories for starters.

Middle of the Road Guy
Middle of the Road Guy
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

I’m curious, which type of electronic device did you use to convey that comment?

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

14 yr old laptop which a friend was going to take to Freegeek if you really want to know.

Kyle Banerjee
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

If your objection is to any service that bears a corporate logo regardless of how beneficial, seems like it might be difficult to function.

You don’t even want to know what the companies that make internet communication possible have facilitated.

soren
soren
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Some life cycle analyses suggest that recycling the old laptop and purchasing a new ultra-low-voltage/low-power-arm laptop (5-10% the power usage of a pentium-era laptop) may be a better choice (depending on usage, of course).

One example:

Material extraction, production, manufacturing, and distribution of a laptop computer are expected to consume about 1634 MJ of energy and emit approximately 90.51 kg of CO2 eq.

…a laptop that consumes 97.34 kWh per year (Table 2) experiences annual
GHG emissions of 38.94 kg of CO2 eq

http://www.co.twosides.info/download/Hoang_A_et_al_Life_Cycle_Assessment_of_a_Laptop_Computer_and_its_Contribution_to_Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions_National_University_San_Diego_2010.pdf

9watts
9watts
6 years ago

“Nobody is making people use these bikes. Nobody is making people buy Nike products.”

Please!
Advertising – the thing that Nike bought by branding bikeshare – works on many levels. Unopposed cultural influence being just one. I’m sorry you fail to recognize those other levels but either way you can bet they expect to get their money’s worth, as Hello, Kitty suggested above.

Matt S.
Matt S.
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

High blood pressure can be dangerous to the heart.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt S.

High blood pressure is the least of their worries.

“The Girl Effect was born amid an urgent PR crisis two decades ago, when Vietnamese Nike workers spoke to labor advocates and journalists about being routinely beaten by their managers; dozens of other news stories exposed negative working conditions in overseas factories making products for Nike. Under public pressure to take responsibility for its supply chain, then-CEO Phil Knight admitted that the company had become “synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse.” He promised to not only transform Nike’s supply chain but to lead the entire apparel industry into a new era of corporate social responsibility.”

“Workers routinely collapsing unconscious at their work stations from overwork and excessive heat, then being forced to return to work minutes after waking up; managers hurling epithets, often vulgar, at the mainly female workforce; absurd work rules, like a ban on yawning; the routine firing of pregnant workers; harassing workers for using the bathroom, including photographing them when they enter and exit; illegal overtime requirements that were not waived even for a worker who needed to attend a family funeral.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_grind/2016/08/nike_s_supply_chain_doesn_t_live_up_to_the_ideals_of_its_girl_effect_campaign.html

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

I don’t understand the problem with Nike getting some advertising on bikes which they bought for the city to use. I thought folks on BP wanted more bike travel. I’d assume most who use them are people visiting PDX and who don’t have their own bike with them.
.
Is there something wrong with Nike? Sure, they probably use low-wage foreigners to make their stuff, but those low wages and steady jobs are no-doubt welcomed by those workers. I did read your WTO article and I think a main reason WTO was opposed was because it would result in more Americans losing their jobs to foreigners – same with NAFTA – and I think that did happen – the fears were justified.
.
I don’t buy stuff because of the name on it – I buy stuff that I think works and which I think will last and if I can buy something without a famous name on it for less money I’ll do it if it meets my needs. But if the name is famous, who cares?
.
Nike makes low-tech stuff – shoes, clothes, etc. Just about anyone could make stuff that’s equally good for less money; go out and do it – become a rich guy! 🙂

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Smokey Bear

“Is there something wrong with Nike? Sure, they probably use low-wage foreigners to make their stuff, but those low wages and steady jobs are no-doubt welcomed by those workers.”

No doubt.

“Just about anyone could make stuff that’s equally good for less money; go out and do it – become a rich guy!”

Right. Why didn’t I think of that!

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Your brand doesn’t even have to be a big hit to make you rich. If you sell shoes or clothes that are functional and can sell a million or so copies and make $1 on each one, then you’ll be rich. Same with any product. But if it is a big hit, you may be a bazillionaire – nothing wrong with that – you’re providing a product people choose to spend their own money on. It’s a win-win.

Middle of the Road Guy
Middle of the Road Guy
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Strange, I still feel zero compulsion to buy a Nike product. Because guess what…I still can make my own decisions.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago

“I still feel zero compulsion to buy a Nike product.”

Me too. But this is not really or solely about that, as I’ve tried to suggest here.

“To be sure, the strategies of enticement appear to shape tastes in certain new immigrant communities, in many sectors of the youth and children’s market, in communities of impoverished and uneducated consumers, and even in those more upscale markets of educated consumers who boast that they are unaffected by seductions. But in all those markets, as Schudson has shown, there are people who are indifferent to and contemptuous of advertising and who depend largely on their families, friends, and consumer groups for information about goods. Growing investment in advertising in not (and has not been) grounded solely on its immediate or obvious impact on consumer choice; rather, it is based on the need of business to have unopposed cultural influence.”
(Michael Schudson as quoted in William Leach, Land of Desire, p. 384)

Kyle Banerjee
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

So it’s better to not have affordable publicly available bikes because a logo might brainwash us into buying products that use exploited third world labor? I hate to break it to you, but virtually everything is contaminated with such labor (very likely everything you’re wearing) — including the cars and petroleum products people will use more frequently when bikes are not convenient.

I would have thought that the cultural influence of having bikes so prominently available would deliver a greater benefit than a small swoosh could take away. BTW, I ran in some of the early Nikes back in the day and like their shoes. I worked at UO and OHSU when Phil Knight gave those institutions hundreds of millions of dollars. I still don’t own a single Nike item right now, and it has nothing to do with politics.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

“virtually everything is contaminated”

OK so what are you proposing we do about it?

Shrug? Because that’s what your response sounds like to me.

I believe there are principles and that there are times when it is important to stand up for those principles (King, Gandhi, Guthrie, etc.) Your response suggests that you have given up hope that any such actions could make a difference, and besides we got bikeshare out of the deal….

Well—and this won’t surprise you—I don’t think this is an inspiring vision because what we get out of it, far more than a few orange bikes, is even more pervasive corporate control of our lives, through the money that ends up concentrated ever further in the hands of those few who run the handful of big corporations and banks, and then buy politicians and judicial appointments.

bendite
bendite
6 years ago

So they drove their car to damage bikes to stick it to the man?

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago
Reply to  bendite

Speaking of Stick Man, check out this hilarious video. Lots of good youtube video on the Stick Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOZwUfsql5M

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  Smokey Bear

Wow, that video is AWESOME!!!!1! It was so AWESOME how they kept replaying the same loop of some dude hitting another dude witha F’N STick! (he’s the stickman, get it??) LMFAO, LOL totally. Hold on, I’m going to go watch that againn! I LOVE YOU, Stick man!

Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

Then you will LOVE this stick man video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLS84pgXGJ4

🙂

Kyle Banerjee
6 years ago
Reply to  bendite

Good thing car and oil companies don’t benefit when you drive around wrecking bikes….

Eric Leifsdad
Eric Leifsdad
6 years ago

Check streetview history for a silver Subaru which used to be parked where a station is now.

GlowBoy
GlowBoy
6 years ago

Hey, maybe it could be the same early-2000s Subaru Forester I saw pull into a New Seasons parking lot with the bumper sticker, “If you aren’t vegan you are NOT an environmentalist!” (NOT was underlined on the sticker too, BTW).

Someone who’d put an eco-superior sticker like that on a planet-wrecking SUV might also be hypocritical enough to use said vehicle to vandalize low-impact bicycles for violating their private moral code.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  GlowBoy

That could be read as “keep your holier-than-thou attitude to yourself if you’re not pure.”

GlowBoy
GlowBoy
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

Basically yes. If you’re going to go around being holier-than-thou, you’d damn well better be walking the talk.

Mike Quigley
Mike Quigley
6 years ago
Reply to  GlowBoy

Unfortunately, America isn’t Europe. You still need a fueled vehicle to get around unless you’re a shut-in. At least it was a Subaru.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike Quigley

“You still need a fueled vehicle to get around unless you’re a shut-in.”

That’s nice. With friends like these the carfree hardly need any enemies. Or were you unaware of the fact that some 18% of rental households and some 6% of homeowner households in certain parts of our City (that I happen to be statistically familiar with) don’t own any autos?

Lester Burnham
Lester Burnham
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Hey good for you that you live nearby what you need and have safe infrastructure to get to it. A lot of people in this city don’t have that luxury, or have circumstances in their lives that don’t allow a bicycle to be the only solution to their transportation needs. Please try to be a little less self-centered.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Lester Burnham

I’m going to wager that you know exactly nothing about the relative luxuries experienced by those who currently get by without a car in the zip codes and census tracts I’ve found them to be in. So I would ask that until you understand that you keep the self-centered quip to yourself.

Even if there were slightly more carfree households where proximity was excellent, focusing on that statistical relationship does not help us—in fact distracts us from noticing much less—understanding how those who are carfree but do not enjoy those benefits make it work.

Lester Burnham
Lester Burnham
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Yes 9watts, it’s true that nobody on this forum knows as much as you. It’s probably why you are allowed by Maus to post at such an excessive rate and dominate the forum.

I’d say being a far-east PDX resident makes me pretty qualified to see the hurdles in being “car-free”. I don’t live in a bubble.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Lester Burnham

“I’d say being a far-east PDX resident makes me pretty qualified to see the hurdles in being ‘car-free’.”
My point was – and is – that there are no doubt people in far-east PDX who get by without a car, but without knowing what their lives are like, how they manage, what their attitudes toward transportation are, it is problematic to tell each other that it can’t be done, or can only be done by those who enjoy luxuries withheld from those who live out where you do.

GlowBoy
GlowBoy
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike Quigley

Mike, your statement may be true of much of America, both the suburbs and the countryside, but is not true in many of our larger cities. You can certainly get around most of Portland pretty effectively – and even significant chunks of its suburbs – without a fueled vehicle.

Also true here in Minneapolis, despite our metro area’s obnoxious sprawl: we’ve got bike infrastructure at least as good as Portland’s, and an excellent transit system. If I’m doing a trip without the kids, I almost never drive an automobile here.

BB
BB
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike Quigley

The people I know who don’t own cars get out more and farther than most people I know who own cars.

q
q
6 years ago

The ironic (for the “saboteurs”) thing is that their vandalism brought all kinds of positive publicity to Nike–first with all the press (including national) about the vandalism, then more about the bikes being back in use, and now more with this news. If they get caught, that’ll be a fourth round of articles with Nike mentioned positively every time.

Before this, I doubt many people outside Biketown users and cyclists even noticed who sponsored the bikes.

Hello, Kitty
6 years ago
Reply to  q

That’s probably it — the vandals probably worked for Nike as part of a guerilla marketing campaign.

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

Haha. I like your postmodern take on this.

q
q
6 years ago
Reply to  Hello, Kitty

If they worked for adidas, they could lock them up for years under the “3 stripes and you’re out” rules.

Todd Hudson
Todd Hudson
6 years ago

White people with dark hair and driving a Subaru. So basically half of the city. Though it’s very likely the Rose City Saboteurs and local Antifa folks are mostly the same people.

OrigJF
OrigJF
6 years ago

The actual surveillance video is much better than these pictures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOEqyx1yC-I

David Hampsten
6 years ago
Reply to  OrigJF

Was that a bolt cutter on the guy’s back? Interesting he put up the poster first, before he and his buddies worked on wrecking the bikes.

Kyle Banerjee
6 years ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

They seem very concerned with self promotion given why they claim to be acting.