Theft and Bemidji

Spring was coming and my wife wanted a bicycle. She hadn’t had one since she was very young and after seeing how much I enjoyed mine she had decided that she wanted one too. It was a large expense for us so I weighed the benefits. Having another bike, I thought, would be a great way to save a little money on fuel. Instead of starting the car for those trips where we only needed a couple items from the local stores we could simply ride our bikes. The bike would last several summers, I figured, so the initial cost would eventually be offset. It would save us time. We own a single car and my wife doesn’t like to drive it. So, having a bike would allow her more freedom to venture further from home or work at her leisure during the summer when I wasn’t around to give her a ride. It would provide some exercise for us. It would also be environmentally conservative, and would provide some extra bonding time for a husband and wife as we enjoyed the new city trails. These are all good and healthy things so I decided the investment was a sound one and promptly agreed that we should make the purchase.

So we saved our money. It wasn’t easy. Our yearly income averages around only $14k and we work hard to live off of that without resorting to the many food stamp or welfare programs available. We manage, but it is hard. It takes sacrifice and we often have to carefully consider any large purchases we make that are outside of our budget. And at roughly $100, a bike was a large purchase. Where most families wouldn’t bat an eye at spending that on a dinner, we had to save over a couple months. But we save it up we did and through the help of some friends and family and a little extra work on the side we quickly had the money we needed. Now all we had to do was find a bike that fit. It was a task that was easier said than done because the problem in finding a bike for my wife wasn’t that there weren’t bikes available in Bemidji. There were. It was that they were either too expensive or were too big. You see, my dear wife is a short woman and a standard 26” adult bike was far too large for her. We found a few youth bikes that fit, but many where out of our price range or where mountain bikes with full suspension and overly complex controls. As a new rider she wanted something comfortable and simple, a single speed cruiser. And we found one too, after a lot of looking. One of our big box stores had just gotten in some 24” NEXT Lajolla cruisers so we bought one. It was purple and it fit just right. A little more saving and we bought a basket for the front. Perfect.

Happy ending, right? I wish. I would like to say that this is where the story ends. I would like to tell you that this is a happy story with a happy ending where a woman got to spend the summer enjoying the purchase she had spent so much time considering, waiting for, and saving her money for. But I’m not, because I can’t. I can’t because when we left our home downtown the other day and walked past the rack where our bikes are chained I heard a gasp and a shocked “No!” from my wife and turned to see her standing next to her new bike. The seat was gone. Someone had stolen it. And not just the seat, either, but the post and hardware that holds it on too! The bike is now useless until we can find the money and the parts to replace it. To make matters worse, we had even taken precautions to prevent this very sort of thing from happening as it had happened to us before when I had bought my own bike. Someone had stolen my seat too, so when I bought a replacement I had used a heavy duty zip tie to fasten the seat to a bolt that holds the seat to the frame. I had done the same to my wife’s bike but the thief had beaten the clamp from the frame of the bike and simply taken everything! Apparently in this town people will steal things even if they ARE bolted down!

Now some of you reader this are probably thinking “So what? It’s just a small thing. Just go buy another seat and don’t be so worked up about it. It’s no big deal.” And you’re partially right. We will go buy another seat. We will go spend more of our hard earned money to replace something that someone else has stolen and is now using for free. We will do it because we have to and in fact we already have. A quick visit to our local bike shop for the parts to replace the ones that were stolen cost us $47 total for a seat post, seat, and theft proof clamp. To put that in perspective that’s half again the cost of the bike when it was new, is $3 short of our weekly budget for groceries, and is one fourth my monthly paycheck. That’s money that could have gone into savings but is now going to cover the cost of the theft. We spent that because we were left no other reasonable choice if we wanted to make the bike useable again so I will not pretend it isn’t a big deal.

You see, I’ve written all of this to make a point. Theft is a real problem in the city of Bemidji. I’m sure many of you have noticed it and maybe even know someone who has experienced a similar story. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was your bike that got stolen or maybe it was something more expensive. The point is that something which was worked hard for and was earned got stolen by someone that did not earn it. That’s wrong. And I realize every town has theft and that probably every store in those towns has problems with theft because bad people are everywhere but here, in our town, it has become a real problem. It’s more common here. Don’t believe me? Visit the big box stores here in Bemidji, especially ones that sell sporting goods, and look at what is locked up. Look at what items you have to ask a clerk to open in order for you to purchase them or look at them. Now go to any other town in Minnesota and you will notice many of those items are not locked up. Why? Now check the police reports in the papers. How many of them are reported thefts? Talk to store managers. Ask if their shoplifting is high.

Now ask yourself what you can do about it. The answer is simple. Be vigilant and report the crime! To use our theft as an example; did you see someone walking down the street with a bike seat tucked under their arm? Did it look suspicious? Maybe the person looked nervous. Why? Did you report it? Do you see someone at the store stuffing DVDs and CDs into their shirts? Why are they doing that? Report it. Isn’t 12:00 a.m. an odd time to be working on a car stereo? YES! Report it! Report it! Report it! You see, theft is a crime of opportunity and will often only be committed if the thief thinks they won’t get caught. Keep watch, report suspicious activity to the police, the manager of the business, or the owner of the property. Please don’t turn a blind eye to theft, help deter it. Thieves rarely steal if they think they’ve been spotted. Remember, this is your community, get involved. Make your town better. Theft raises the prices of the goods you buy and the bike that you watched get stolen may be the only transportation of the college student that lives next door. Report theft. Do this and maybe we, all of us, all the people that live, work, shop, and are just trying to survive in this town, maybe we can make a difference and make Bemidji a better place to live.