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.
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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.
“Unfortunately I had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get them evidence, so I haven’t yet gone to them.”
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Toronto police Const. Hugh Smith, who works in the traffic services unit, said the service takes all theft reports seriously.
“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.
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“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?'”