The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : Police Bike Patrol Heads Off Thieves

Like stuffing stockings and spinning dreidels, burglarizing cars parked at crowded West San Fernando Valley shopping centers is a longtime holiday tradition.

“Crooks doing their Christmas shopping,” is how Capt. Bob Gale of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division describes the yuletide rite.

But thankfully, it’s a dying tradition. While the West Valley Division usually sees a 50% increase in burglaries from cars during the month of December, in 1995 the number of those crimes held constant.

The reason: LAPD officers took to their bicycles that month, and extra patrols along Ventura Boulevard and in the malls scared off many would-be grinches.

“We were very happy,” Gale said. “We figure we prevented 150 crimes from occurring.”

The West Valley has a chronic problem with burglaries from cars, with more than 4,700 vehicles broken into in 1995. Other than the usual ripping out of stereos, burglars cart off cellular phones, and now even air bags, which they can resell for $800 on the street, police say.

During the holiday season, the burglaries worsen. As residents flock to the malls and trendy boutiques along Ventura Boulevard, burglars trail behind them, breaking into their cars and snatching bags of gifts left behind by harried shoppers.

“It’s a very expensive crime,” Gale said. “Aside from losing whatever property you had, it’s the broken windows, locks, the higher insurance rates.”

The crimes occur in crowded mall lots and secluded subterranean parking areas, where burglars can crouch next to cars, break in and snatch the prize in well under a minute, Gale said.

Many shoppers are unaware of the threat, he added, recalling a recent trip to Topanga Plaza where he saw about 15 cars with bags of gifts in plain view on the seats.

This year, 60 West Valley officers were trained in bicycle patrolling, ponied up their own money to buy 12-speeds and started patrolling along Ventura and near the malls.

Deployment was limited by available overtime funds, Gale said, so the patrols, which ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., were “moved strategically, to make it look like we had a lot more out there than we actually did.”

On a bike, “you’re lower to the ground, you’re more mobile,” Gale said. “When you’re cruising in a car you miss so much. On a bike you can just scoot through there.” Rush-hour gridlock on Ventura Boulevard and the contours of subterranean parking garages didn’t hinder bike-riding officers.

Gale said the added police presence also may have contributed to an unexpected drop in auto thefts and armed robberies in the patrolled areas.

“We were just flabbergasted,” he said. “December turned out to be the lowest month of the year for robberies.” It is usually the highest.

The success of the bike patrol has led Gale to continue it this year, as long as his overtime funds hold out. He said the division is also converting its foot patrol along Sherman Way in Reseda to a bicycle detail.

Gale said bicycle patrols may be the Valley’s answer to the Central Division’s foot patrols, which have been successful in downtown Los Angeles.

But bicycles will never replace the auto as vehicle of choice in the LAPD’s nearly 55-mile West Valley Division. Officers on bicycle patrol must be driven to the start of their routes in cruisers, Gale said, because it’s usually too far from the station to bike.