Excuse me — that should be allegedly stolen bicycles.
Serial crime victim Platty Jo dropped in at flea markets in Oakland in Berkeley hoping to spot her stolen wheels.
She didn’t find the wheels, but she shot photos of several bikes while there. She writes, ” Two vendors weren’t happy about me snapping photos, and coincidentally, they seemed to be offering a collection of higher-end bicycles. But hey, if they were selling legitimate goods, they shouldn’t have anything to feel worried about, right?”
She created a new Flickr group, Bicycles At Bay Area Flea Markets, and encourages others to shoot photos of bikes they spot at the flea market and upload them to this group in the hopes that it can be a useful crime fighting tool.
Platty Jo suggests visiting the local flea markets after a bike theft in her TODO list after a bike theft.
Law enforcement in Santa Cruz have recently been sweeping the local flea market inspecting “serialized” items “which includes bicycles.” The police checked bicycle serial numbers against a list of stolen items, so maybe reporting those thefts isn’t as much as a waste of time as I’ve sometimes assumed.
…awesome idea, platty jo…dunno why this hasn’t been going on for years but glad to see you’ve taken the initiative in utilizing the social media for something that’s very positive & ultimately could become very wide reaching…
…you look at those high end bikes & c’mon, you just KNOW there is a 99.9% chance (allegedly) they were come by illegally, ya ???…
…btw, fritz – dunno if you know platty jo & sean, aka, ‘the bearded one’ but those two are serious ass cyclists…
Yep, I’ve met Jenny and TBO and concur about their seriousness!
The only thing worse than the thieves and the scum selling them are the jerks who buy them pretending that they don’t know they are stolen.