In response, one commenter referenced the “Gas Works Chop Shop”, suggesting someone who had lost their bike might check there.
Gas Works chop shop? I’m familiar with the semi-permanent encampments in the covered building on the east side of the park, and my son discovered a cache of used needles tucked into the old equipment a few weeks back, but I hadn’t heard or seen it being used as a bicycle chop shop.
Jeff pointed me towards this Reddit thread on the topic from back in May, which included a photo of a bike supposedly ready for stripping:
So, I’m wondering: is this common knowledge that I’m ignorant of? Has anyone else seen bike disassembly going on at the encampment down there? Anyone try looking for their stolen bikes down there?
And, while we’re on the topic, remember that burglary ring the Seattle Police Department accidentally discovered around this time last year? Where they found an apartment filled with the stolen packages that had been going missing from porches around Wallingford for so long? The SPD said they would be repatriating what they could, and the report said that some of the goods were still in their packages, so I wonder if anyone reading this ever heard from the police about their stolen items? I contacted the police department a few months after the case to ask if they had begun returning the items, but never heard back.
And, oh heck, as long as we’re at it, more crime news from the FB page. Jennifer wrote:
Good morning! I wanted to make people aware that we’ve had two thefts this week. Wednesday, our neighbor observed someone going up on our porch to take an Amazon package (full of baby and breastfeeding items… good luck selling those). This morning, my car was broken into and my sunglasses and wallet were both taken. My car is parked in our driveway, off-street.
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The permanently encamped addicts at Gas Works Park frequently dabble in bicycle parts to supplement car prowling and home burglary income, but in my experience bicycles stolen nearby don’t show up there. Security video of bicycle thefts in our lot generally show the thieves entering from the park and departing east along Northlake.
The “Gas Works Chop Shop” was a handful of guys who set up in May through August of 2015 in the park and put together an industrial-scale stolen bicycle parts operation. They had shopping carts for transportation and inventory, and kept their phones, stereos, and power tools charged with the electric power outlets in the picnic shelter. They would blast music, smoke weed, intimidate passers-by and break down bicycles all day. I stopped going to the park entirely in June because of those guys.
The July 4 cleanup of the park pushed them into Waterway 19, and that encampment endured for about six weeks of the hottest weather, largely fueled by meth sold out of a couple of the campers on Northlake. The RV eviction and cleanup of that site displaced many of those people from the neighborhood, and while property crime continues, drug residue and discarded stolen property has decreased substantially (or simply moved to Leary Way).
Keith, it’s so intolerant of you to accuse a bunch of drug addled bums of stealing bikes. How do you know they weren’t taking them and fixing them with the intention of giving them back to their rightful owners? You’re just an elitist NIMBY, and you should be more welcoming of diversity and those who are just “down on their luck.” Come on, reach out and go give them a hug and some words of encouragement.
I posted about the trafficking in stolen bikes going on last summer. Under the covered area, there is a loft and there were dozens of bikes up there, including bikes with burley trailers, etc. I hate to cast aspersions without having hard evidence that those bikes were stolen, but it was highly suspicious at best.
No word from SPD on our bikes (we had their #s) though they promised within a couple months. We keep all the bikes in the house now; the perfect use for our dark craftsman living room.
Yes, we recovered both of our kids’ stolen bikes from Gasworks last summer. My husband retrieved them from the covered area, with help from some of the homeless guys living in the park. And yes, my husband also saw the Chop Shop operating out of the RVs, as described by Ken.
This morning, I saw a man wheeling a beautiful orange bike into the backyard of one of the shuttered up houses across the street from the library. Looks like that is another hot spot of bike theft now. There are three houses in a row there that are awaiting tear down and it appears that people are living there. Fine with the finding shelter part. Not fine with the stealing stuff part.