Crime

Stolen Bike Finder: A Website to Keep an Eye Out For Your Stolen Bike So You Don't Have To

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

The only thing worse than having to take Muni home from the bar because your bike was lifted is trying to recover it.  There's constantly monitoring Craigslist and eBay, never mind canvassing used bike shops, flea markets, and 7th and Market.

Considering how much bike theft happens in our city and that it's a “risk-free crime“—only encouraging more and more of it—you'd think there would be a better way to recover your ride.  I think tech blogs refer to this as a “market ripe for disruption.”

Well, the stats bloggers over at Priceonomics thought this situation needed some attention and created the Stolen Bike Finder.  Rohin from Priceonomics explains:

The solution we built is based on the only effective solution to bike theft we’ve encountered - self-policing by victims. If your bike is stolen, try to find where the thief is selling it and stop them. In San Francisco, bike theft victims know to search for their bikes at 7th and Market, the Oakland flea market and on the local Craigslist. The result of this self-policing? Thieves have to put the bikes on a van and sell them in another market. That’s a major pain in the ass for them.

So that’s what we decided to build. A tool to help you track down your bike when it gets stolen and make it really hard for criminals to flip it for a profit by selling it online. A dragnet for stolen bikes.

A fuckin' dragnet for stolen bikes? How does it work?:

If your bike is stolen in San Francisco and the thief is selling it in Los Angeles, now you have a way to find it. If they’ve stripped the bike down to its frame and are trying to auction it off, you can find it too. You can search on the site or set an alert and we’ll notify when bikes matching the description pop up. Once you find it, you can contact local police to figure out how to get it back.

Basically, you'll still have to check-up on 7th and Market daily, but it'll keep an eye on the internet for you.  (And we know how much you love checking out the sights and smells of mid-Market, so we'll call this a win.)

[Stolen Bike Finder]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Horrible Person Steals Puppy From SF SPCA

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Following this summer's rash of sidewalk and park dog thefts, someone has decided to go right to the source of our beloved pets and help themselves.  The SPCA fills us in:

Violet, a 10-week-old puppy, was stolen from the San Francisco SPCA's Adoption Center at approximately 2:00 pm on Tuesday, October 16th. The SF SPCA’s staff members are very concerned for her well-being.

Violet is a brown and white terrier mix puppy. She has not yet received all of the vaccines necessary to be protected from fatal diseases such as parvo and rabies. Until she is old enough to complete the vaccine series she should not be allowed to walk on the ground, which is where the parvo virus can live, or socialize with unvaccinated dogs.

Recently Violet was transferred to the SF SPCA from San Francisco Animal Care & Control. SF ACC staff members found her abandoned in a garbage can and brought her to the shelter.

Violet was spayed two days ago, on October 14th, and needs to be closely monitored in case complications arise from her surgery. Violet's microchip number is 982000197006884. She weighs approximately 7 pounds.

…The SF SPCA is offering a $500 reward for Violet's safe return. We urge anyone with information to call the SF SPCA at (415) 522-3507.

Have You Seen This Chicken?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

He's got a few extra swirls and squiggles on there, but I'm pretty sure someone's gone and drawn a penguin wearing a rubber glove on the side of the US Bank Building.

Report: Bike Theft is a "Risk-Free Crime" in San Francisco

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

A few weeks ago, Priceonomics issued a report on bike theft that's worth a look:

It seems as if stealing bikes shouldn’t be a lucrative form of criminal activity. Used bikes aren’t particularly liquid or in demand compared to other things one could steal (phones, electronics, drugs). And yet, bikes continue to get stolen so they must be generating sufficient income for thieves. What happens to these stolen bikes and how to they get turned into criminal income?

It turns out using simple economic cost-benefit analysis mumbo-jumbo, stealing bikes is a very rational crime for someone to partake in if they want quick cash without risking prison—even if they have to sell the bikes for 5-to-10 cents on the dollar:

Criminal activity (especially crime with a clear economic incentive like theft) could therefore be modeled like any financial decision on a risk reward curve. If you are going to take big criminal risk, you need to expect a large financial reward. Crimes that generate more reward than the probability weighted cost of getting caught create expected value for the criminal. Criminals try to find “free lunches” where they can generate revenue with little risk. The government should respond by increasing the penalty for that activity so that the market equilibrates and there is an “optimal” amount of crime.

Using this risk-return framework for crime, it begins to be clear why there is so much bike theft. For all practical purposes, stealing a bike is risk-free crime.  It turns out there is a near zero chance you will be caught stealing a bike (see here) and if you are, the consequences are minimal. 

There are a few great accounts of journalists getting their bikes stolen and then going on a zealous mission to try to capture bikes thieves (see here and here). In each account, they ultimately learn from local police that the penalty for stealing a bike is generally nothing.

According to Sgt. Joe McKolsky, SFPD's bike theft specialist, most thefts are performed by amateurish drug addicts looking for a quick score, “Bikes are one of the four commodities of the street — cash, drugs, sex, and bikes… You can virtually exchange one for another.“  However, more skilled thieves that cut through ulocks to get at thousand dollar bikes and likely shuttle their score down to LA, knowing full well that trying to sell them locally risks getting caught.

Read the full report over at Priceonomics.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

SFPD Releases Statement on Thursday's Officer-Involved Shooting

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Since protesters continued to vandalize businesses through the weekend, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage at Farina, Locanda, Live Fit Gym, Wells Fargo and others, SFPD released a statement, presumably in hopes of countering the slew of misinformation out there about Thursday's officer-involved shooting.

On Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 8:06PM, two plain clothes officers assigned to the San Francisco Police Department Gang Task Force were working with two Probation Officers from the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department. These officers were participating in Operation Night Light which is a Juvenile Probation program designed to ensure that youth on probation are off the streets and home after curfew and as part of the Police Department's violence prevention strategy of Interrupt, Predict and Organize (IPO) which seeks to: interrupt violent crimes, to predict where retaliation may occur and prevent additional violence and to organize community groups in an effort to plan new long term strategies for crime prevention.

While traveling east bound on 14th Street near Natoma Street, the SFPD officers noticed a subject who they recognized as a gang member this is on parole. One of the SFPD officers got out of his unmarked vehicle and approached the suspect. That suspect ran westbound on 14th Street on the sidewalk and the officer gave chase. During the foot pursuit, the suspect produced an assault pistol. The officer ordered the suspect to drop the weapon. The suspect refused to comply with the officer’s order. Instead, the suspect turned towards the officer, with gun in hand. Fearing for his life, the officer discharged his firearm. The suspect was struck by gun fire and was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The suspect’s weapon, a “Tec 9” machine pistol, which was loaded with 25 rounds of 9mm ammunition, was recovered at the scene. The second subject was also detained at the scene.

This is an ongoing investigation in its early stages. This incident is being investigated by the San Francisco Police Department Homicide Detail which investigates officer involved shootings, the SFPD Internal Affairs Unit, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the Office of Citizens Complaints.

Any witnesses or anyone with information on this to this incident are asked to call the SFPD Homicide Detail at (415) 553-1145 or the Anonymous Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or text-a-tip to TIP411 with SFPD in the message.

The name of the suspect is not available at this time as he is still hospitalized with non life threatening injuries. Once he is booked into County Jail, that information will be available. Suspect is a 22 year old male who is on active parole for assault with a deadly weapon, firearm.

The Ghost of George Zimmerman Strikes Again

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Last night, the Mission's erupted into protest as the neighborhood's biggest gang, SFPD, shot an 18-year-old boy after he allegedly pulled a gun on four undercover officers and tried to run away. Here are the facts: there are no facts.  In fact, the internet is swimming with rumors right now—no one being quite sure what happened.  But here's tumblr sartorialist Mission Mission's best guess:

Details are still forthcoming, but the initial account has a kid running from police (his apparent transgression is unknown at this time; hopefully it’s not something as insignificant as vandalism) when he was shot three times, possibly in the back. Again, we’re still waiting on the whole story.

In the meantime, a retaliatory tag withe the word “KILLERS” decorated the Mission police station, which is currently on high alert. The neighborhood is swarming with cops right now. Everyone please be careful out there and let’s not do anything crazy, ok?

When it comes to facts, Mission Mission also likes to shoot first and ask questions later.  It turns out that SFPD is quite certain the responding officer saw a gun, or at least a bag of Skittles that looked like a gun, according to Mission Local:

An unidentified man was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after being shot by a police officer on Thursday night, police said.

At 8:06 p.m. on Thursday, four plainclothes officers approached two suspects they believed to be gang members near 14th Street and South Van Ness Avenue, according to Sgt. Michael Andraychak of the San Francisco Police Department. The two suspects ran for approximately one block near 14th and Minna streets, then one of them pointed a Tec-9 pistol at one of the officers, Andraychak said.

“The officer fired two shots, fearing for his life,” he said.

All this follows a fatal shooting Sunday outside of Garfield Park on 26th and Treat, in which a man was allegedly “executed” and the bloggernets forgot to report it.  Because of the gooey journalistic egg on their faces, it seems like everyone is trying to hype the shit out of this shooting, provoking the Occupy movement to twitch before rigor mortis sets in (see video above) and vandalize Mission Station with “Killers” around 11pm.

According to UA tipsters, 16th and Mission looked like a war-zone as late as 11:30pm, with riot police “everywhere” and the BART stations shut down and gated up.  And those are the facts as best as we can guess.

Man Fatally Shot on Treat Street

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Around 4pm yesterday, we received a couple of tips that a man was “stripped naked” and “executed” on Treat and 26th, right outside Garfield Park.  It's not entirely clear what happened based on what we've heard, and we're unsure if his attacker or the paramedics were the ones responsible for stripping him naked, but it sounds particularly grisly—especially when considering this happened in the middle of the day.  And despite 18 hours passing, the shooting has thus far been largely unreported, except for a five sentence piece from ABC that reported the shooter fled the scene and is still on the loose.

[This post has been updated with the removal of the victim's photo.]

SFPD Cruiser Ticketed For Parking in the Bike Lane

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

That's what I looks like, right?  This officer's cruiser, notorious for parking in this same spot along the Market Street bike lane almost daily, has been finally dealt some justice for abusing privledge?

Turns out the officer is just covering his ass—placing a false ticket on the windshield hoping that DPW won't actually ticket him (and so cyclists won't bash his windshield in).  Timothy Mendez knows his trick, “That dude puts it there himself. Keeps it up in the visor.”

At least he knows he's breaking the law?

[via Aaron Durand]

SFPD Tweets Apology for Poor Handling of Muni Sexual Assault Case, Deletes it Minutes Later

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

SFPD tweeted out the above apology yesterday afternoon regarding Brittney's horrible story about dealing with the department after being sexually assaulted on Muni , only to delete them minutes later. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense—they should be making a public statement about this, reassuring everyone they do give a shit about sexual assaults and that this is a priority for them.  But when asked why they removed the public apology, they responded “sorry the message was meant for only a few individuals.”  Lame.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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