Eastside News

Bike thefts on the rise in Redmond

There has been a big jump in the number of reported bike thefts in Redmond in 2018.
Andrea Wolf-Buck with the Redmond police says they've seen a 150% increase, “it's definitely a spike and it's a bit unusual for how big of a jump it is.”
The concern may be well founded, found bikes are taking up space in the police garage, and many thefts are unreported, so the numbers could be higher. Wolf-Buck says people should report bike theft specifically, “we don't want people to ever think, ‘oh the police are too busy they don't care.’ You can make online reports of stolen property.” She says the only benefit is that Redmond does appear to have a much higher reporting rate from citizens about property theft.
Redmond Police say their investigation is active especially after someone broke into multiple apartment buildings to steal bicycles during the last week of June.
Brock Howell has been contacted by Redmond Police and says bike theft is an issue across all cities and towns in Western Washington, “I'm not surprised Redmond is seeing an increase but it's something we've got to get a hold of.”
Howell works on bike security and says hitting buildings often gets thieves to nicer more expensive bikes, “... while a bike may be work 2k they steal it for that reason the thief will turn around and sell it for much less.”
Howell says he estimates that a thief may have 30 seconds to one minute to steal a street locked bike, but has more time once inside a building. Even with cameras, thieves could take ten minutes or more to make off with nearly a dozen bikes.
Redmond Police say in 2018 so far they have had 115 bike thefts.
Bellevue authorities said the city averages 10-16 bike thefts per month, and that figure has maintained for 2018
Issaquah officials told KIRO 7 in 2017 the municipality saw 60 bike thefts, this year they've had 36 and counting. They believe they may see a slight decrease for the year.
Registering bikes is one way to ensure that stolen bikes can be returned -- Redmond admits bikes that don't go back to owners are donated.
Howell admits with more people biking and many of them buying more expensive bikes, he didn’t mince words in describing the theft issue, “we're at epidemic levels of bike theft and we need to immunize ourselves.”
Howell says even a dozen bikes can be taken from a building and trucked away to a chop shop where they're re-assembled and re-sold online.
Redmond police are encouraging people to use the strongest locks even when parking them at buildings like this -- and they want to be alerted if people find their stolen bike for sale online.

More news from KIRO 7

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE NEWS APP