Caught In The Act Security Video Of Thieves Leads Cops To Some Surprised Suspects
Posted September 28, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Toronto is known around the world for a number of things – the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre, the Maple Leafs, City Hall.
They’re all things to be proud of.
But this isn’t – the G.T.A. continues to be the bike theft capital of the world.
Police figures shows more than a dozen bicycles disappear every day in the Toronto area.
Which is why this story may just give you new hope. It involves the theft of a pair of two wheelers from some twins in Markham – and how they improbably got them back.
When thieves noticed an open garage door at the Art family home, they couldn’t resist the opportunity to swoop in and grab the two boys’ bicycles sitting there in plain view.
What they didn’t know was that the family had recently installed a swimming pool in the backyard and put up a security camera to safeguard it.
That unblinking eye caught them in the act and when the Arts found the bikes gone, they went to the videotape.
“Here he comes out,” Jack Art relates as he watches the action unfold. “He talks to the guy, sets the first guy up with the white jacket there as a lookout. Here comes the other kid … They go to the back of the garage, pull out the bikes. Then out come the bikes and it’s all gone within a matter of minutes.”
The kids admit they shouldn’t have left the door open but were devastated by the loss of their precious transportation.
“I’ve saved around $200 to get the bikes,” an angry 12-year-old Timothy complained. “It took a long time.”
His brother Simon was equally upset. “I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about the bikes,” he confesses.
But unlike the thousands of others who lose their wheels every day, the Arts were sure they could get them back. They took the candid camera video to a nearby high school, suspecting the age of the students was a key clue.
And when they matched the suspects to their pictures, police moved in. That led authorities straight to the missing merchandise.
The kids were almost speechless when they came home Thursday and discovered their precious possessions were back.
“Our bikes,” one of the twins marveled. “Wow.”
Their dad was beside himself with glee. “I can’t believe that they would recover the bikes so quickly, within 24 hours even,” he exults.
The teens accused of stealing the pedal pushers have been charged with break and enter and possession of stolen property.
But the Arts knows they’re among the lucky few. Most owners in the G.T.A. never recover their vehicles, which are either resold by the thieves or are rounded up by police and auctioned off when the owner can’t be found.
For more on a new program that’s designed to catch bike thieves and how you can stop them before you join the Steal Wheels tour, click here.
