Bristol Bike thieves?

[Revolution]

[img][

face blurred to protect the innocent

/img]Walking through the centre of Bristol today - 5:35pm and my attention is drawn to two blokes looking furtively around as they walked up to some bikes chained to railings at the Council City Hall. Then one produces a battery powered angle grinder from an old Sainsburys carrier bag and starts to grind away at the shackle lock securing the red bike.
Amazingly it seemed as though I was the only person seeing this so I very visibly got out my phone and started taking pictures. The guy with the grinder soon spotted me and told me he didn't appreciate my taking his picture. Not wishing to get punched, I stopped taking photos but told him that it looked to me like he was stealing the bike. He told me that he owned it, the keys were at his mum's and called me a lemon!!!? I said that I was going to call the police and walked away. The fact that they then left suggests to me that their claim to own the bike was very dubious so I called the cops on the 101 number. 15 minutes later I got to talk to someone - gave a detailed description and offered to send them the pictures. I was told that they would text me a report number and an address to send the images to..................still waiting for that.

[Heltor Chasca]

Good work 99! You saved someone (or 2 people) the heartache of losing a bike. They should commend you. I do.

[Tangled Metal]

Nothing got stolen they'll not be a interested, but at least two people have their bikes with only one person needing a new lock.

[mercalia]

Wow I bet the guy whose lock had been partly cut will have a shock and relief when he /she goes to ride home.

The police should be sent the pictures as they often know the faces and could be evidence of attempted theft ( still a crime? The lock has been damaged so that a crime in its self?)?

For all our sakes I hope you pursue this.

[hondated]

If you can when you get the time try and find out who owns the bikes and let them knowhow lucky they are to still have their bikes.
I have just copied link and pasted it on Twitter so if you can can you do the same.
It would be a shame if these two get away scot free.

[Postboxer]

I always find it's much easier locating a cordless angle grinder than it is going round my mum's to get my keys! Should have their fingers grinded off. At least they were in high vis.

[Bmblbzzz]

High vis as disguise. A good choice from thieves' POV because a) it makes them look like "cyclists" b) it looks a bit official. Interesting they chose such a public spot, and one where cops are quite likely to pass by on chance.

For future note, you can actually call 999 in this situation as it is a crime in progress. I have done so (though it wasn't in a public place) and cops turned up within 10-15 mins.

[mercalia]

I always find it's much easier locating a cordless angle grinder than it is going round my mum's to get my keys! Should have their fingers grinded off. At least they were in high vis.

ah the old punishment of haveing hands cut off for stealing? still practiced in some backward parts of the world. In this case just cut off one finger for each bike? would make them think before the next theft? AND then easy to spot the thieves in public, unless they wear gloves?

[Revolution]

Update - as suspected, no text from the bill.
I have filled out an on-line crime report thingy but it doesn't allow me to upload the photos.
My guess is that if it happens at all, the cops on the ground won't get sight of the pictures for a couple of weeks.

[gaz]

Well done that man.

[Postboxer]

Send them to the local paper. Maybe with a tongue in cheek letter stating you hope the poor fellow in the photo managed to use the angle grinder to free his bike, or go to his mum's to get his keys, apologise for treating him like a thief.

[Psamathe]

...
The lock has been damaged so that a crime in its self?)?

For all our sakes I hope you pursue this.

Some locks are not cheap. Steal the value of some locks from somebody and the Police would be interested. So I'd hope that criminal damage and attempted theft would interest them enough to take some action. And given that they individuals seemed "kitted out" then they will undoubtedly be stealing other bikes elsewhere and having photos of a crime in the process of being carried out should be a great help/opportunity to the Police.

That said, the cynic in me suspects ...

Ian

[Revolution]

I had a phone call the day after I filled in the on-line report and the woman who called gave me an email address to send the pictures which I did accompanied by a detailed description of the guy who was sporting a very distinctive tattoo on his right forearm.
I received an email from the police today

Many thanks for submitting the photos to us regarding a possible attempt theft of pedal cycle, I have checked through our records and we have no reports of any theft of this bike from College Green area in recent times and as such we have no victim, the images have been saved against the crime report I took at the time and will remain on our system however the incident report will be filed pending any contact from the owner of the bike reporting a theft as we are unable to progress without this.

I have submitted the pictures for circulation in the area however as we have no crime confirmation and cannot disprove the males story it was not considered proportionate to progress any further and therefore circulation of the pictures was not authorised.

The email did seem to be an official response and Kind of what you would expect and not much use if they had moved on to target other bikes but at the end was added

Thank you for being so proactive in this instance and taking the actions that you did, it is likely that you have prevented the theft of a pushbike.

this seemed to be an addition written by the police person and I imagine, was their own take on it.

[mjr]

For future note, you can actually call 999 in this situation as it is a crime in progress. I have done so (though it wasn't in a public place) and cops turned up within 10-15 mins.

This. I've done it a few times over the years and if nothing else, the officers involved seemed to quite like ambling up to a likely thief caught red-handed. Thames Valley over 10 minutes, but Norfolk (this year) and Cambridgeshire (maybe 2 years ago) take closer to 5 minutes or less.