Scooter thefts in Tulsa a growing crime problem

Monday, June 28th 2004, 12:49 pm

By: News On 6

Tulsa had another scooter smash and grab Sunday night on East Admiral. Burglars broke in the front door of the Affordable Merchandise Store and took off with several gas and electric scooters.

The store owner tells News on 6 reporter Rick Wells this scooter theft has become a regular event. â€œThey got a black scooter like this, they got one like this." Janice Andrews is running down for me the list of items stolen from her Affordable Merchandise store on East Admiral.

Burglars broke in the front door ran off with five scooters and a motorcycle. This isn't the first scooter snatching, there have been four here in a week.

A popular target has been the little Ninja scooters, she calls them rice rockets. "They got 2 of these out of here last Friday night and Iost two more the day before off the sidewalk." And one more the day before that.

After officers found the break-in early Monday morning, they beat the bushes north of Admiral and found several scooters that appeared to have been stashed for pick up later. Then they got a call about a motor cycle in a trunk of a car.

Tulsa Police Sgt Robert Rohloff: "We stopped a vehicle up on Harvard; it was one of the gas powered motor bikes stolen in the burglary." Proving once again the difficulty of hiding a motorcycle in the trunk. Tulsa Police arrested Quinton Jamison [pictured], a convicted felon; he'll likely be charged with concealing stolen property.

Sgt Rohloff says this is an ongoing problem in several areas. "We had 2 auto part stores on north Peoria hit with in the last week. We had another store out east where scooters were stolen."

Andrews says they got all the scooters back this time but she believes they'll have to stop selling them to stop the problem.

What makes these scooters so popular to steal is that they are also very popular to buy. Affordable Merchandise has sold 3,500 of them since October.