Surveillance video shared on social media showing a man going to the front porch of a Toronto home and quickly cutting away a lock to take a bicycle at 3 a.m. is one reason police want cyclists to rethink how they secure their bikes.
Victor Graziano was in northern Ontario recently when he unexpectedly had to return home to attend a funeral. To Graziano’s shock, his $750 bicycle attached to the front porch wall and locked with a wire cord was missing.
READ MORE: $19,000 bicycle stolen in midtown Toronto
His Beach neighbourhood home is equipped with lights, a security camera and a video motion-activated doorbell (which had the ping notifications turned off between 1 and 6 a.m.) that’s connected to his phone. Despite all of those features, it took just seconds for a man wearing cycling gear to cut through the metal cord and take off with the Massey bicycle while a second man was seen looking back and forth at the edge of the driveway.
Graziano shared the video on Facebook in the hopes of identifying the two men and is in the process of contacting local bike shops. Although he said he “loves” Toronto police, he said he hasn’t reported the incident to officers because he said past calls weren’t dealt with urgency.
Get breaking National news
“Unfortunately I had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get them evidence, so I haven’t yet gone to them.”
READ MORE: Teens charged after 11 stolen bikes recovered by police
Toronto police Const. Hugh Smith, who works in the traffic services unit, said the service takes all theft reports seriously.
- Former prince Andrew arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office
- Tumbler Ridge school shooting victim set to hopefully return home soon from Vancouver hospital
- Shia LaBeouf arrested after fight during Mardi Gras in New Orleans
- Anti-feminist ideology ‘increasingly relevant’ to national security: CSIS
“Bikes are going to get stolen … but when you got some type of evidence – video evidence of that – and you have it within that hour of it happening, we need to have that immediately,” Smith said.
He said reports can be filed at any time, day or night.
READ MORE: Theft study: Half of cyclists have their bikes stolen in Montreal
“Every moment, every day that goes by, it just weakens our case in regards to returning that bike.”
Smith encouraged cyclists to register their bikes with Toronto police to help with the recovery if a stolen bicycle is found.
He also encouraged people to cover bikes with personal identifiers to help prevent theft.
“When a thief steals a bicycle, their first thought is, ‘How can I get rid of this in 30 minutes and will anybody buy it?'”
Comments
Comments closed.
Due to the sensitive and/or legal subject matter of some of the content on globalnews.ca, we reserve the ability to disable comments from time to time.
Please see our Commenting Policy for more.