Campus police with at least two Orange County universities are using electronic trickery to nab thieves who swipe bicycles.

Officers at UC Irvine and Chapman University are deploying “bait bikes” to catch crooks who steal student’s wheels.

“The advantage (in using bait bikes) is getting thieves off the street to make sure everybody is safe,” Randy A. Burba, chief of the Chapman University Department of Public Safety, said recently.

Bicycles, computers and cell phones are the most common items stolen at Chapman and other college campuses, Burba said.

“Students get engulfed in their studies and may walk away from an item for couple of minutes,” he said. “That’s when they (thieves) swoop in.”

In 2014, bicycles valued at $614,351 were stolen from the University of California’s 10 campuses, according to UC police statistics. With only 5 percent of that total recovered, few owners ever saw their wheels again.

UC Berkeley had the highest total value of bicycles stolen, $135,000. UC Merced had the lowest, $3,040.

Since 2011, there have been 275 bicycle thefts at Chapman resulting in 37 arrests, Burba said. The majority of arrests have resulted in the recovery of bicycles, he added.

Most of the stolen bikes are valued between $100 and $900 while three are worth more than $1,000, Burba said.

Some of the bike thieves at Chapman are students while others are professional criminals who target college campuses looking for crimes of opportunity, he speculated.

At Cal State Fullerton, 44 bikes were stolen in 2011, 79 were taken in 2012 and 69 were pilfered in 2013, the most recent years that statistics are available, according to campus police.

Thieves most often hit bike racks outside of the CSUF library and McCarthy Hall.

Police at UC Irvine seem to be making headway in cracking down on bike thefts.

Bicycles valued at $89,762 were stolen in 2011, according to UCI statistics. That figure dropped to $28,210 in 2014. And after recovering 7 percent of stolen bicycles in 2013, based on value, UCI police recovered 19 percent in 2014 after an aggressive bicycle-registration campaign.

Regionally, police on college campuses, such as UC Riverside, are increasingly deploying bait bikes to catch thieves.

UCR police have arrested 16 people since April 23, when they began planting bicycles equipped with a concealed GPS device that allows police to follow the perpetrator. Some of the arrests have put an end to a rash of thefts.

“What it indicates to us is that the same person is stealing from us over and over again until we catch him,” said Sgt. Michael Andert, who supervises the department’s crime-prevention program.

Here’s how the Bike Theft Abatement Program works: UCR supplies bicycles to a company that will embed the GPS device inside at a cost of about $1,200. Police then lock the bicycles – how many, they won’t say – at a rack for about two weeks at a time.

When a bicycle is moved, an email or text alert is sent to a police dispatcher, who then tracks the bicycle online and direct police to its location.

Police at Chapman have been using a bait bike supplied by the Orange Police Department for about 4 months resulting in four arrests, Burba said.

UC Irvine police credit bait bicycles, along with other measures, with reducing thefts significantly.

Investigations Lt. Joe Reiss said officers arrested a man last Thursday who chose unwisely: He took the bait.

“We had been hit the past two weeks five or six times, and we put the bait bike out (two days ago). We identify the trends and strategically place bait bikes where there have been thefts,” Reiss said.

UCI police have also been putting up posters that show photos of repeat offenders and encourage students to report sightings. Searches of the homes of offenders who are on probation remind them that police are watching, Reiss said.

“We saw the rate drop by half the first year we began doing this,” Reiss said.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/police-687183-bicycles-bait.html