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star-telegram.com
Arlington police put brakes on bike theft
By Susan Schrock
February 6, 2012
A thief smashed surveillance cameras, broke a security light and carefully maneuvered to avoid tripping the alarm system at Bicycles Inc. in southwest Arlington last month to steal nearly $95,000 worth of high-performance road bikes.
Police say the suspected burglar apparently then hid the bikes, which ranged in price from $500 to an $11,000 custom-painted model, in brushy area near a creek on his family's property until he could remove the price tags, grind off the serial numbers and sell them one by one.
But only a handful of bikes were pawned before police tracked him down. Within two days of the Jan. 16 crime, police, using a specialized computer, matched a $3,000 burnt-orange-and-white model to a Fort Worth pawnshop. On the pawn ticket, the man who had sold the bike wrote his name and driver's license information, which led to the other bicycles, said police Lt. Jim Lowery, west day shift patrol commander.
"The whole thing is an exemplary model of teamwork," Lowery said. "I think we've recovered 99 percent of the property stolen."
When officers arrived at the man's Arlington home on Jan. 19, they found one bike with its serial number still visible propped up against the garage. While executing a search warrant the next day, officers also found Bicycle Inc. price tags in the trash and 19 more bikes hidden away.
"Our belief is he was stashing them in a creek bed and preparing them at the house to pawn," Lowery said.
Suspect surrenders
The suspect, 27-year-old Walter Hugh Herrington II, turned himself in at the Tarrant County Jail on Jan. 31 and was released on $15,000 bond, Lowery said. Herrington faces a third-degree felony charge of theft between $20,000 and $100,000. A call to his attorney was not returned.
Bicycles Inc. manager Eddie Holsopple said that the store has been burglarized several times since it opened there in 2007 but that police have almost always recovered every stolen bike. He said the high-end racing bikes are easily identifiable and are usually custom-fitted to a specific cyclist, which should make it hard for thieves to fence.
"He had chosen a bike to pawn that was a fairly unique color," Holsopple said of the bike found at the Fort Worth pawnshop. "You won't find anything like that at Walmart."
Another bike was recovered at a Mansfield pawnshop after the search warrant was executed, police said.
Powerful tool
Lowery credited officer Keith Farley for taking a detailed burglary report that provided enough information and descriptions of the stolen goods so that Officer Jim McRobbie, assigned to the pawn unit, could easily match those to items that area pawnshops report they have purchased via a computer database accessible to law enforcement.
McRobbie said the LeadsOnline database helps Arlington clear about 60 theft cases a month. Last year 720 cases were cleared involving about $600,000 worth of property. Previously, departments kept their own records, making it more difficult for police in one city to search other city's database for possible matches, he said.
"We couldn't survive without it. This crosses boundaries and can go even go nationwide if you wanted to," said McRobbie, who recently tracked down a $20,000 violin that had been stolen and pawned.
McRobbie's investigative work helped detective Robert Green quickly track down the suspect and recover Bicycle Inc.'s inventory, Lowery said.
Holsopple said the store has taken steps to help thwart future burglaries.
"We've re-evaluated all of our security measures. We've doubled them to make it harder for people to get in and easier to detect them once they are in," Holsopple said.
Many of the bikes recovered suffered some damage and will be sold at a discounted rate, he added.