Walk by a bike rack on campus during the day, and it is almost certain to have bikes crammed into every available space.
So it should come as no surprise that bicycle thefts are a common problem on campus. In recent months, however, this problem has grown considerably.
Since Aug. 1, 36 bicycle thefts have been reported. Fourteen bikes were reported stolen in October alone, and between Nov. 1 and 12 there have been 11 reported thefts.
“Bike theft on a college campus is a relatively common problem, though not to this extreme,” said ACU Chief of Police Jimmy Ellison. “We think we have a specific problem on top of just the generic college bike theft issue.”
Ellison said about half of the thefts this semester have targeted bicycles that were not locked to racks or poles.
“Sometimes a student will just find an unlocked bike and get on it and ride it from point A to point B, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here,” Ellison said. “What we’re dealing with is someone who is coming onto campus with the intent to steal bicycles.”
Most of the thefts reported to the ACU Police have come from bicycles that were on campus, although several thefts have occurred at Smith-Adams Hall, Barrett Hall and other areas off-campus.
Jill Dougher, junior AD/PR major from Irving, woke up three weeks ago to find her bike missing from its usual spot in her carport. She said while her other roommates had their unsecured bikes right next to hers, her bike was the only one stolen that night.
“My bike was the closest to the driveway,” Dougher said. “It was still under the carport, but if a person were to have walked up they would have gotten to my bike first.”
Dougher’s roommate had her bicycle stolen a few weeks later.
“We should have learned to lock them up, but we didn’t.” Douger said.
In light of the recent upswing in bike thefts, ACU Police has tried to increase its presence around the bike racks, although the random times and locations of the thefts have made it difficult to establish a trend.
“It has admittedly been frustrating for us not to be able to catch somebody and stop this rash of bike thefts,” Ellison said. “That’s why we depend on the public to see that suspicious activity and report it.”
