CU Police are searching for an accomplice in a bike theft that happened on campus this past week.
According to a news release, CU Police arrested James Kramer, for suspicion of bike theft. Kramer was arrested on Monday after trying to sell a bike at Full Cycle on Pearl St. The bike that Kramer tried to sell had been reported stolen from the CU Engineering Center earlier that day.
Police are now attempting to identify the man they think may be Kramer’s accomplice and fled before officers arrived at Full Cycle.
Police have arrested ten suspects associated with bike theft from the CU campus and over 239 bikes have been reported stolen from the campus this past year. Cmdr. Robert Axmacher of the CU Police said that there are between 200 and 300 hundred bikes stolen a year, and there has not been a rise in the average number of thefts.
“In August 2009, we had 22 thefts,” Axmacher said. “In August 2010 we had 35, and this year we had 23.”
Axmacher said that students can get their bikes back, but reporting the serial number can be a big factor.
“[Students] do [get bikes back] in some cases, our recovery varies from year to year,” Axmacher said. “Somewhere between 10 percent and 20 percent usually. The biggest key to getting it back is knowing what the serial number is.”
Axmacher said that in one case, they had a search warrant for a thief’s storage locker where they found many stolen bikes, but weren’t able to return all of them because victims had not reported the missing bikes’ serial numbers.
“That’s one of the reason we really want people to register their bikes, because if they’re stolen, our best chance of getting them back is if we know what the serial number is, because that gets put into a bigger system,” he said.
Axmacher also suggested that students make sure their bike is locked with a U-Lock, and locked properly, with both the frame and front tire attached to the rack.
For more information on bike theft, check out this pamphlet on the subject. If anyone has information regarding the ongoing case or can identify Kramer’s accomplice, contact Detective Brian Jordan with the CU Police Department at 303-492-8168.
Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Isa Jones at Alexandra.i.jones@colorado.edu.
