BELLINGHAM, Wash. — The Bellingham Police Department has taken bike theft prevention to a whole new level, and it’s getting results.
The department’s property crime unit is using bait bikes to catch bandits.
“We’ll put them in places where they get a lot of looks. Grocery stores, places where people who might steal bikes hang out,” Sgt. Keith Johnson told KIRO 7’s Joanna Small on Friday.
Johnson said most bike bandits who are caught tell officers they got the bike from a friend.
The officers typically don’t stake out the bikes. Instead, they track them using GPS. However, police won’t tell say where on the bikes the GPS devices are located.
Judging by the numbers, the bait bikes have been a tremendous success.
Between 2013 and 2017, Johnson said the city was averaging 460 bike thefts per year.
In 2018 and 2019, the number of thefts was nearly cut in half.
The department also offers an online bike registration program that allows officers access to a bike’s serial number.
That way, if a rider reports a stolen bike, police are more easily able to track it down.