Campus police advise community to be cautious and aware
Over the last six years, Nathan Shami has routinely biked to campus and locked his bike up at the covered shelter beside the Science Complex. In March, there was an unexpected snowstorm that forced the chemistry MSc student to leave his two-year-old bike locked up on campus overnight.
“I went back for it a day later and it was gone,” said Shami, explaining that he was too ashamed about leaving his bike overnight and too stressed with school to report the incident to the police at the time.
Unable to afford another bike right away, Shami spent a few weeks saving up for a new one.
“I took the opportunity to get a nice new bike from Sport Chek,” he explained. “There had been some bad weather as soon as I’d bought it, so I thought, I’m not going to ride it in the rain, I’m not going to ride it in weather where I might have to leave it on campus.”
Shami purchased his new bike on May 2. On May 9—the second time Shami had ever rode the bike—it was stolen.
“I rode it to campus at 10 a.m., locked it up in the same shelter outside of the Science Complex, and did my research during the day. I came out at the end of the day—about 6 p.m.—the lock was cut and hanging there and the bike was gone,” Shami explained.
The theft happened during the day, on a weekday, in a highly populated area on campus. This time Shami reported the incident to the Campus Community Police, where a report was filed to a nation-wide police database containing the serial numbers of stolen bikes across Canada.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“No lock is infallible, so what we’re trying to do is just make it really difficult for [thieves] to steal.”[/pullquote]Sgt. Elizabeth Bouchard, who has been investigating bike thefts on campus for over five years, explained that knowing the serial number for your bike is crucial in being able to track it down in the event it is stolen: “If any law enforcement officer in Canada has a reason to run that serial number, they’ll know immediately that the bike has been stolen and they’re able to get it back to the owner.”
There were 61 bikes reported stolen to Campus Community Police in 2015 and 18 reports so far in 2016. According to Bouchard, the university campus is “a good shopping spot for thieves” due to the high concentration of bikes being locked up on any given day.
So many bikes have been stolen around Guelph that it is no longer shocking to hear.
“I got unlucky,” said Shami, “but as I tell this story to people, rather than being shocked and sorry for me, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I got my bike stolen last week and my friend got her bike stolen the week before that.’”
Although Shami’s bike was brand new, according to Bouchard, the age and quality of the bike does not necessarily mean it is not a target for thieves.
“Thieves will steal inexpensive bikes because they are accessible,” said Bouchard, explaining that campus police have been seeing a trend where thieves will come to campus and steal a bike that is poorly locked up, then pretend to lock it up at a bike rack while attacking a lock on another, more valuable bicycle.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”…the lock was cut and hanging there and the bike was gone.”[/pullquote]Campus police ask members of the community to help tackle bike theft by always locking their bike, by purchasing the best lock they can afford, by locking their bike to something solid like a bike rack, and by using two locks: preferably a “U” lock to secure the frame to the rack and a cable lock to secure the parts of the bike.
“No lock is infallible, so what we’re trying to do is just make it really difficult for [thieves] to steal,” explained Bouchard.
Although Shami plans to get another bike soon, he is hesitant to spend as much money on both the bike and the lock next time.
“At this point, I feel like if I got a more expensive lock, [the thieves] would have just cut that and I would have lost even more money,” he said. “I obviously thought the campus was pretty safe […] but my general impression is just shaken a bit.”
In order to be prepared in the event a bike does get stolen, campus police have started the Bike ID Program designed to help members of the community keep track of their bike’s information. According to Bouchard, officers will be set up at different bike racks around campus during the summer.
“We’ll take all the information about the bike—what kind of bike it is, the make, the model, the serial number, how many speeds, any kind of additional things that have been added to the bicycle—we take a picture of it, and then we’ll email it to the owner of the bike so they have that information in case their bike gets stolen.”
Knowing that the number of thefts is likely much higher than what actually gets reported, campus police also encourage everyone in the community to report all incidents of theft and call immediately if they notice anything suspicious.