Skiatook Police Try To Find Owners Of Dozens Of Unclaimed Bicycles

The Skiatook Police Department has dozens of bicycles just sitting and waiting to be claimed. 

One of those bikes could belong to you. 

To get your bike back is simple. 

All you have to do is call police with a detailed description. 

And if you don't, well, there's not much time left to claim what's yours. 

From BMX to scooters and mountain bikes, Skiatook police are searching for bike owners. 

"We pick up those bicycles and bring them back to the police department. We check them in as found property," said Sgt. Tracy Moore.

Over the past several months the Skiatook Police Department recovered more than 24 bikes from all over the city. Their collection grows so large that they have to get rid of them at least twice a year.

"A lot of it is that people are stealing these bicycles when they're walking and riding them to different locations. And then abandoning them there," Moore said.

Some of the bikes have locks, some of them don't, but police say in order to keep yours from being stolen, be sure that it's locked down and secured.

"It's a crime of opportunity. They're walking down the street. They're seeing a bicycle in a yard and just picking it up and driving off on it," Moore said.

Surveillance video was taken over the summer. You can see a thief casing the front of a Skiatook home. He runs up, jumps on the bike, throws down the helmet and rides off.

"A lot of times people don't report the bicycles to us. Sometimes they do. Whenever we recover one of these bicycles we check our records and see if anybody has reported the bike's serial number or description and we can sometimes return them to the owners," Moore said.

So if you haven't yet claimed your bike, Moore said you have until the end of the year.

"We can hold on to them up to 90 days and if we don't have anybody that claims it, or files for a report of a stolen bicycle we usually donate it out to charity," Moore said.

If you are missing a bike or know someone who is missing one, have the owner contact the Skiatook Police Department.