Locks and chains: Sacramento police laud bait-bike program as justice for cyclists—but concerned residents question the real target

Graying and tall, hands clasped in front and gaze to the floor, Randy Malone stood behind bars in a courthouse holding cell, awaiting the judge’s decision. Due to a strike from a felony conviction two decades earlier, he was likely to serve double the maximum sentence.

It was Friday, May 27, the morning before a three-day weekend. Malone was looking at three years behind bars. The crime?

He’d stolen a bicycle left out as bait by the Sacramento Police Department.

Since its September 2013 inception, Sacramento’s bait-bike program has been lauded by police and bicycle advocates alike. But recent efforts to bring the program to south Sacramento have raised questions over its effects on impoverished residents. Critics are also concerned about Sac PD’s use of social media to highlight arrests, while new data analyzed by SN&R suggests the program isn’t targeting hardened criminals, but the city’s addicted and indigent.

Last January, the Sacramento Police Department announced it would be expanding the “bait bike” program—an initiative in which officers leave bicycles with tracking sensors around the city to trap potential thieves—to south Sacramento’s Florin Road and Mack Road corridors.

The community immediately pushed back. Would this program, which charges suspects with felonies for stealing police bicycles priced at more than $950, target their teenage sons and daughters? Did it disproportionately target people of color?

“Why aren’t you giving money to give kids bikes instead of giving money to get these kids to steal bikes?” asked Berry Accius, a south Sacramento resident and founder of the Voices of the Youth mentorship program.

It was one of the biggest hiccups for the police department’s popular bait-bike program, which started almost three years earlier in response to a growing problem.

According to data compiled by the California Department of Justice, reported bike thefts hit a 21-year high in the city of Sacramento in 2013. A frustrated public came to view the police as part of the problem—uninterested in solving crimes that meant a lot to the victims but ranked as low priorities for a police force enduring budget troubles and hiring freezes.

Flash-forward a few years and the bait-bike program is racking up arrests that law enforcement publicizes on social media.

State DOJ records showed bicycle thefts in Sacramento County dropped in 2014 for the first time in six years—to 1,419, down 12 percent from 2013. In the city of Sacramento, they dropped to a three-year low of 727.

But these figures are difficult to judge. Bike theft numbers rely on victims reporting the crime—something both law enforcement officials and bicycle advocates encourage while simultaneously fighting to reduce the incidence of theft. There’s also emerging concern that baiting and shaming petty thieves into felony arrests marks a return to the red-meat justice that filled prison with black and brown people in a pre-Proposition 47 California.

“We need services in place. Not jail, not prison,” said concerned Mack Road resident Rebecca Person.

Sensing the community’s discomfort, Pastor Les Simmons of South Sacramento Christian Center Church arranged a forum last April involving Sacramento police and city council members Rick Jennings and Larry Carr to discuss the potential of introducing bait bikes to south Sacramento.

Attendees say that police tried to assure them that the profile of bike thieves in Sacramento did not fit their demographic of concern, teenage boys of color.

According to Jenna Abbott, executive director of the Mack Road Partnership, which planned to work with Sacramento PD on the bait-bike program, the officer at the forum showed that “the people being picked up weren’t young people of color at all. They were white men in their 40s,” whom Abbott described as transients.

But after the forum, Person went to the police department’s social media pages and studied their posts highlighting bait-bike arrests.

“All the photos that came up were black,” Person said.

County arrest logs of 23 bait-bike suspects whose mug shots were posted to Sacramento PD’s social media dating back to January 25, reveal nine (39 percent) black, seven (30 percent) white, five (22 percent) Hispanic and two of other races. Compared to U.S. Census Bureau data, black residents are overrepresented by a factor of three in these posts.

Suspects on social media also appear younger than claimed. The median age at the time of arrest of the 22 suspects whose ages SN&R could confirm was 31 years old. Ten of them (45 percent) were 28 or younger.

According to police spokesman Sgt. Bryce Heinlein, social media is a useful tool in preventing bike theft.

“It provides a forum for people to ask questions, share tips and bring awareness to potential risks in their neighborhoods,” he said. “We believe that by bringing awareness to the program through social media it will have a deterrent effect on bicycle theft.”

But Sac PD’s posts using bait-bike suspects’ mug shots often attract discouraging, vulgar and sometimes racist comments from users, with no sign of oversight.

A May 1 Facebook post showing the photo of a young woman arrested for activating a bait bike yielded dozens of comments, including: “A black person stealing something? That’s unusual!”

Abbot of the Mack Road Partnership believes the community bait-bike forum ameliorated the concerns of south Sacramento residents, then added, “The decision was made to hold [off implementing the program] for a little while.”

Many have been under the impression after the forum that the program would not move to their neighborhood. But with no formal message from the police, people have been uneasy.

“People are still in that scared factor: Are the bikes there, or are the bikes not?” said Accius.

“If they lied to us, then we need to know,” said Person.

According to Sacramento PD, the program is still a go. “There are plans to expand the program to the south area of Sacramento,” said Heinlein, “but those details are still being worked out.”

Mapping of recent bait-bike activity suggests a move to south Sacramento may already be underway.

A May 28 entry in the Sacramento Police Activity Log shows a bait-bike arrest near the corner of Fruitridge Road and Freeport Boulevard, and May 27 records show bait-bike activity on the 200 block of Florin.

Sacramento Alliance of Bicycle Advocates Executive Director Jim Brown has long considered the bait-bike program a useful addition to a multipronged approach to deterring bike theft that includes increased access to quality bike racks and reliable locks, as well as education on effective locking techniques.

But when he attended the Mack Road bait-bike forum last April, Brown saw value in the concerns of the area’s residents. There are few bike racks in the neighborhoods, and fewer bike shops where residents could obtain reliable U-locks or heavy-duty chains.

“There aren’t even bike lanes on Mack Road,” said Brown. “There are bigger needs here.”

Accius agrees, saying that if the Mack Road community had more opportunities to express its needs and concerns with the city beforehand, there might be a higher probability of buy-in.

In a region where bicycles are often the primary source of transportation, efforts to increase access to bikes and improve the bicycle infrastructure are more pressing issues for many residents than putting bike thieves away for felonies.

For her part, Abbott says that the Mack Road Partnership has joined with Kaiser Permanente and Dean Alleger of Orange Cat Racing to provide residents with fix-it clinics and bicycle safety education.

As for the bike thieves, community members wonder if Sacramento authorities are treating the symptom rather than the illness.

“The police are saying most of them are addicts,” said Person. “If that’s the case, why don’t we get them help rather than send them to prison?”

When asked what portion of the region’s bait-bike arrests include homeless residents or addicts, Heinlein said, “There’s no way I can accurately answer this question.”

Court records of 28 bait-bike suspects named on police social media and activity logs in 2016 revealed that 17 arrestees (61 percent) had possession-of-methamphetamine charges in their court history. Ten of the 28 (36 percent) had multiple arrests for possession of meth.

Court records also show that four bait-bike suspects faced prior fines for violation of the city’s anti-camping ordinance, suggesting that they had recently struggled with homelessness. Another three were listed as “transient” in county arrest records.

Randy Malone had both meth charges and an anti-camping ordinance violation in his court records.

“There are people out here who have addictions, people out here that don’t have jobs, who don’t have a way out. They’re frustrated,” said Accius. “We don’t need to give them felonies. We need to give them help.”

On the day of his sentencing, Malone was given another chance. His public defender had convinced the judge that if he were given a place in the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Program, he could turn things around and eventually get that trucking job he’d been studying for. He was sentenced to five years probation.

As he turned to leave, the judge addressed Malone. “Good luck,” he said, “I expect to hear good things from you.”