With reader reports about bikes found as well as bikes taken, West Seattle Crime Watch has featured more bicycle-theft reports than usual lately (with one even caught on camera). 
And Southwest Precinct‘s Sgt. Joe Bauer confirms to WSB that it’s a heightened concern. How to thwart these thieves? For one, he warns that bicycle owners need “to secure their bicycles in the underground parking garages. We are getting a lot of stolen bike reports that seem to be mainly on Avalon and in the North Admiral and Alki areas. We have had some on Fauntleroy too. I’d like to remind folks that the bikes are not secure just because they are in the garage. Lock them up or, better yet, keep them in another location in the building if possible. If the bike won’t fit in the condo or apartment, folks can always take the seat and front wheel off to make the bike a little less appealing to the thief.”
Checking overnight reports, we see another report from overnight – 1700 block of Alki SW. But not everyone files police reports (checking the report map, we see fewer bike-theft icons than we’d expect, given what we hear about); Sgt. Bauer reiterates the importance of filing a report, and has one more reminder: “Please put identifying information on the bike that can make it easier for us to return it and make it harder for the bad guys to sell the bike.”
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