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Breaking the cycle

Incoming registry expected to curb bike theft, reunite owners with wheels

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2024/04/23/breaking-the-cycle...

KEVIN Glasier and his family were fast asleep in their Wolseley house last week when a blaring home security alarm jolted him awake at 6:26 a.m.

“I just jump out of bed, in my underwear, and all you think is: Is somebody in the house? And you’re concerned with the safety of your family at that point,” the 49-year-old father of three said Tuesday.

Running past his kid’s rooms and through the house, he made his way to the door to his garage and spotted a man inside dressed in black with his hood up.

“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” said Glasier. “I yelled at the top of my lungs, ‘Get the f--- out of my garage’ to try to scare him off and he turned and ran.”

Glasier made his way to the exterior door of the garage to make sure the man left.

“I guess he was scared, so he was caught in a bit of a loop — he had that screwdriver, that nine-inch screwdriver, and he was waving that around to keep me back,” he said.

“I came out of the door … and I didn’t think anything was stolen at that point, so I yelled ‘Get out of here, get out of here,’ and he was frozen, so I said ‘I’m not going to hurt you, get out of here.’ So he biked away.”

Upon reviewing footage from his home surveillance cameras — video he has since posted online to try to identify the thieves, scored with wacky music — he realized another scofflaw had made off with a bicycle, which he had bought for his wife’s birthday days before.

Glasier isn’t the only Winnipegger to fall victim to bike theft. Although Winnipeg Police Service statistics show an overall decrease in the number of reported stolen bicycles in recent years, 1,452 were still reported pilfered in 2023. That’s compared to 2,098 reported thefts in 2018.

Mark Cohoe, executive director of advocacy group Bike Winnipeg, believes many bike thefts go unreported, but is optimistic efforts, such as increased secured park biking, have been successful in reducing thefts.

“I would like to think that that’s a part of it as well, that people are getting better access to good storage and that’s holding back the number of thefts,” said Cohoe.

He added that the increase in people out and about post-COVID-19 restrictions may have reduced theft opportunities.

A new bicycle registry system approved by city council last year is expected to arrive online in the coming weeks. Cohoe is optimistic this will reduce thefts and help police return recovered bikes to owners.

Currently, if a stolen bike is found by officers but is not registered by the owner and no proof of ownership is provided, it is held and later auctioned off by police. Council approved a move to 529 Garage, a free, cloud-based system to replace the city-run bike registry last year.

The system is shared by many police agencies. Cohoe said if a registered bike is stolen in Winnipeg but recovered in another city, the system allows the owner to be tracked down. It is also accessible to the public, allowing people purchasing bikes online, for example, to run serial numbers themselves to determine if it had been reported stolen.

City of Winnipeg spokesman Adam Campbell said officials would be sharing more about the new system soon.

Cohoe says addressing social and health issues could help reduce theft in the long term.

“I think we all recognize that a part of this, the bike theft, is driven by poverty and addictions, so certainly getting a grasp on that is a critical part to this,” he said.

“There’s people taking advantage of others, to drive that theft and get the bikes sold, and that’s part of what we need to see really addressed.”

He added he would like to see police dedicate a detective, like police in Vancouver, to focus on bicycle theft.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said it would be difficult to gauge whether the drop in statistics is due to fewer thefts or fewer people reporting the thefts.

“We’re always hopeful that people are securing their property at all times, making it difficult for these thefts to occur, but the reality is, they’re going to occur,” said Michalyshen.

“We take them all seriously, we know the value of bikes — nothing’s cheap these days — and we want to resolve these matters as much as anyone else.”

He said it is paramount for any victim of crime, including bicycle theft, to report it, so police can investigate, hold people to account and ensure data is accurate so officials can focus resources on problems.

Property crimes investigators are actively probing the break-in and theft at Glasier’s home, but have not yet made any arrests, said Michalyshen.

Glasier said he hopes the video helps others learn how brazen those committing break-ins and thefts can be. He added that last year, his family’s vehicle was stolen from their driveway, but they managed to locate it with a tracking device.

“Part of the thing here, too, is just how as a community, and individuals, how much you have to take things into your own hands. We had to find our own car, the police were overwhelmed, there’s a thousand thefts a month, they can’t keep up… it’s rampant,” said Glasier.

After posting the video, he received tips about the suspects in the break-in. He gave the information to police.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.camailto:erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca