Sometimes I have to write on what I see in the streets and blocks and neighborhoods in which I live. What is added to that is the work that I see done by my volunteer Shomrim colleagues.
As the weather warms up, I hear on the Shomrim radio more and more calls for stolen bicycles and even stolen lawn mowers.
I guess what gets to me is that most times, a bike or a lawn mower doesn’t have to be stolen.
So to prove a point to myself, I took a ride Sunday afternoon from Glen Avenue to Slade and then from Pimlico to Reisterstown Roads. I followed side streets, back roads and main thoroughfares.
I could have walked away or loaded into my car at least 17 bikes, by my count. Most of them were strewn on front lawns for the taking. About five were literally on the sidewalk. Two were in the street.
So what happens is that Shomrim gets a call or the Police Department gets a call that a child’s bike is stolen.
Yes, it was stolen.
But you ostensibly offered it up.
The same goes for that wonderful self-propelled piece of machinery that makes men feel so manly and can be found in the shed. Pay $300 or more for a lawn mower, and then go out and find the piece of junk lock of your dreams at the dollar store. Guess what? Your lawn mower is being pushed along those same back streets where it will be soon sold. Last summer on a Shomrim call, we followed a person with a stolen lawn mower, and before the police could get there, we watched him sell it to another person who drove away in a pick up truck. The same guy in the pick up truck is probably cutting lawns for a living. He could be cutting your lawn with your lawn mower.
We have Shomrim volunteers who spend hours and hours away from their own families spending money on gasoline or losing money they could be making to provide for their own families.
Why?
Because you haven’t taught your kids that in the five minutes it takes for them to drop the bike, run in the house, use the bathroom, get a drink and come out, the bike is gone.
It’s also because you aren’t taking the thefts seriously. Oh, you say you do. You get hysterical when your child’s bike is stolen. But do you think it is an accident that bikes seem to be stolen from you and your neighbors?
The people who steal bikes. They know about our neighborhood. They know how careless some of us are. They know where to come when they need a bike that they don’t want to pay for. They could be six feet tall, but they’ll ride away on your child’s 24-inch bike,
Except we are paying much more than the loss of the bike. We’re paying for the loss of trust our children will have, a real sense of violation.
Let the children bring the bike into the house for the five minutes. But overall, puchase locks for these bikes. In this day and age when everyone has a cellphone with a camera app, take pictures of your children’s bikes. Show your children that this is their property, that they received out of your love for them.
If bikes were locked up securely or kept out of sight of those who would steal them, I think we’d see our neighborhood as less of a target.
For now, we’ve become like a shopping mall of theft. Yet, we’re offering up the merchandise for free.
You can help make this stop to a degree.
Black, white, Jewish, gentile, the thieves don’t care what race or faith you are or your neighbors are.
They want the bikes.
After my little tour last Sunday, I’m here to tell you, we’re giving them away.

I remember when we lived in Baltimore how I would get angry at the kids because they left a bike out on the lawn.  “It doesn’t matter that it’s in the back.  If you leave it out it will be stolen.  Bring it into the house, even if you will be back outside in five minutes.”  I must have sounded like a broken record, but at least we kept all our bikes.