Tools of the trade. Notice the seat bags too.

A vanful of broken dreams. (Photos: PPB)

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Mr. Cunningham’s trike.
(Photo provided by Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office)

Someone stole a trike from a 101-year old man and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office wants our help to get it back to him.

According to the Sheriff’s Office the trike was stolen Sunday night (5/3) from Chester Cunningham who lives near SE 74th and King Road in Milwaukie. The scooter is a red, E-Wheels EW 29 model. It has an electric front-hub motor. Cunningham told police thieves cut the chain and took it from his porch.

Cunningham told KPTV it’s his sole means of transportation and he can’t go shopping without it. [Read more…]

(Photo: PPB)

Earlier this month we shared that the leader of the Portland Police Bureau Bike Theft Task Force said we could “end bike theft overnight” if everyone registered their bikes online.

Now Task Force leader Officer Dave Sanders is putting u-locks where his mouth is.

Thanks to an ongoing partnership with Abus Locks, the Portland Bureau of Transportation and registration site Project 529, the Task Force is adding a new twist to their “U Lock U Rock!” program. Once live events like Sunday Parkways start up again, they’ll be doing more cable-lock-for-u-lock exchanges. For now, all you need is a phone and an internet connection. [Read more…]

Last month members of the Task Force joined with Milwaukie PD for a free bike registration event on the Springwater Corridor.
(Photos: Portland Police)

Bike thieves do not care about the pandemic. In fact, it’s probably encouraging them to steal more.

According to the Portland Police Bureau Bike Theft Task Force, bike theft in March was up 25% compared to last year. Task Force leader Officer Dave Sanders says it’s “very bad” out there right now.

The BTTF was launched five years ago this week. We haven’t reduced bike theft as much as we’d hoped, but the task force itself remains strong and is doing excellent work. While Portland is a leader in bike theft with about 10,000 bikes stolen each year (over one per hour), we are also a leader in recoveries. According to PPB data, they’ve recovered 30% more bikes so far this year than last. That’s $100,000 worth of stolen bikes back in the hands of their owners. The key? Registration.

“We could solve bike theft overnight if everyone would take a few minutes today to walk out to their garage and register their bikes,” Ofcr. Sanders shared with me this week.

Sanders is on the frontlines of the bike theft epidemic. As he scours the city looking for stolen bikes, he’s also been a victim himself. It happened back in January and it just happened again last week.[Read more…]

Screen grab from PPB Citizen Online Reporting site.

In a bid to make crime reporting more convenient and free up officers for other calls, the Portland Police Bureau announced this week they’ve expanded the types of crimes that can be reported online.

Along with identity theft, telephone scams, shoplifting, and other crimes, you can now use the PPB’s Citizen Online Reporting System to report a bicycle theft. The new system can be used if the value of your bicycle is below $10,000 and there are no known suspects.

Officer Dave Sanders, founder of the PPB Bike Theft Task Force, says it’s a welcome step forward. “Hopefully this will encourage more folks to report their stolen bikes,” he shared with me earlier this week. Ofcr. Sanders added that he references police reports daily in his ongoing battle against Portland’s rampant bike theft problem (they’ve already recovered over 50 bikes so far this year). “We just got a bike back for a guy this morning in spite of an absent serial number,” he shared. [Read more…]

It’s gut-wrenching to watch. Full video below.

The Ankeny Street Apartments at SE 27th and Ankeny are very welcoming to people who use bicycles. The building’s logo is a person riding one, there’s a brewery across the street with a long row of bike racks, and it’s located on one of the most popular bicycle boulevards in Portland.

Unfortunately the abundance of nice bikes owned by tenants also make it a popular attraction for thieves.

On October 10th Anchor NW Property Group, the company that owns this building and 22 others across Portland, notified police about a theft from their bike room. They then turned over a video of the incident to the Portland Police Bureau.

“This is one of the most coordinated bike storage room jobs I’ve seen in a long time,” said PPB Bike Theft Task Force Officer David Sanders. “If it doesn’t shock people, it should!”
[Read more…]

PPB officers wrangle Nolan Harris inside Metropolis Cycle Repair early Wednesday morning.
(Photo: Metropolis Cycle Repair)

The suspect in a fatal hit-and-run crash that took the life of 85 year-old Ortrud Vatheuer on March 19th is now behind bars. But strangely, it wasn’t the hit-and-run that led police to him.
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North Portland resident and friend of BikePortland, Patrick Mok, had his bike stolen from his apartment building Monday night. What makes this theft notable is that he had it locked with a high-quality lock and it was inside a designated, fenced-in bike room.

Patrick and his favorite commuter that’s currently in the hands of thieves.

Getting a bike stolen is bad enough. Getting one stolen from a place you expected to be secure is even harder to swallow. I wanted to share Patrick’s experience for two main reasons: To remind people that bike theft remains a major issue in Portland (and a barrier to biking for many), and in hopes that his story will lead building owners to invest more to make bike parking facilities as secure as possible.

Patrick says whoever stole his gray, Specialized AWOL road bike planned ahead and knew what they were doing. The bike room it was parked in is located on the first floor of a relatively new, four-story apartment building on North Interstate Avenue. The bike parking room is in the back of a fenced-off parking garage and it’s enclosed by a chain-link fence of its own. Patrick said his recent theft was not the first one they’ve had.
[Read more…]