Thieves Strip Bike Right Outside of RCMP Building

According to Landon Bradshaw of the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition, a bicycle that was locked up outside of the RCMP Detachment in Kelowna was stripped piece by piece right under cops’ noses until only a frame was left.

“It was about a week ago,” said Bradshaw on Thursday, “and I had ridden my bike over to the Car Share. I usually lock it up to the bike rack in front of the RCMP thinking that, ‘Hey, this is going to be a very secure place for my bicycle to be.’”

Bradshaw said that he happened to notice another bicycle locked to the rack at the time. He believes was a hardtail mountain bike, and it seemed to have an evidence tag attached.

Then, on Wednesday, when Landon went to the use the Car Share vehicle again, he saw the same bicycle sitting in the same place but missing its wheels and seat.

“That seemed a little bit ironic to me,” said Bradshaw, “since it’s sitting in front of the RCMP and you’d think it would be fairly secure.”

After seeing the stripped bicycle frame, Bradshaw went into the detachment to leave a comment with the people running reception. They told him that the bicycle in question had been stolen from its owner and then returned to him before any of this took place. Next, when the owner decided that he was moving out of Kelowna and didn’t care to keep the bike, he had locked it outside of the detachment as a means of getting rid of it.

“They left the bike just locked up there thinking, ‘Okay, it’ll get stolen eventually, nothing to worry about.’ And, unfortunately, they were correct.”

When KelownaNow reached out to RCMP about this incident, spokesperson Joe Duncan stated that he knew very little about it despite that Bradshaw’s information came from a man who is employed by the detachment.

Bradshaw, who is currently Director of the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition, received permission from the receptionist to take a hacksaw to the lock that was keeping the stripped bike in place so that he could bring what remains of it to Pathways Abilities Society’s used bike shop.

Bradshaw removed the bike from outside the RCMP detachment on Friday, August 28th.