If you're wearing a t-shirt that says, "My Boyfriend's a Hells Angel", your significant other is probably not a member in good standing of the Oakland club.
A ballsy bike burglar continues to victimize San Francisco's cyclists, ripping off expensive bikes from home garages. With that in mind, police have issued specific tips to help residents protect their bikes.
Over the last few weeks, there has been a series of bike thefts in the Inner Sunset and Cole Valley neighborhoods The suspect has been forcing his way into garages by breaking window panes or prying open vents and then using a long stick to reach for garage door openers.
In several of the incidents, witnesses described the suspect as a black
man aged 40 to 45. He's been seen wearing baseball caps
and has a salt-and-pepper beard. He is roughly 6 feet tall and weighs
about 180 pounds.
So what can you do to keep your Bianchi from being stolen? Here's what police have to say ...
Earlier this week, we warned readers about the rash of bike thefts happening in the Inner Sunset. The thief appears to have migrated to Cole Valley, where there have been increased reports of a cycle crook.
Police Captain Denis O'Leary told SF Weekly that the thief has hit garages on Carl Street from Cole to Arguello over the last week.
"He pries open garage door vents, breaks garage door windows, or reaches through mailbox slots to reach garage door openers," O'Leary tells us.
Police are warning residents to lock up their bikes -- even inside their garages. A serial bike burglar is on the loose, having taken a plethora of bicycles from Inner Sunset garages in six different incidents over the last few weeks.
Police Captain Denis O'Leary says that it's very possible one of the suspects is living in a storage room in one of the buildings that he's been victimizing.
"One suspect has been seen in three incidents," O'Leary writes in an e-mail.
The hefty cop with the handlebar mustache had a problem with a handlebar of a different sort. "Look," he yelled at the despondent fixie-riding hipster he'd just flagged down, "do you have brakes on this thing or not?"
This didn't happen just once. At least one rider tried to explain that, like Fred Flintstone, his legs served as brakes. That answer didn't cut it.
Cyclists traversing Market Street this week have noticed an uptick of riders being flagged down and cited for rolling through red lights or stop signs -- or, as in the case above, not having handlebar-mounted brakes. Apparently cyclists don't read San Francisco Police Department press releases -- as, on Aug. 5, the cops were kind enough to announce they'd be doing this throughout the week. You can read that release here:
Dionette Cherney has been identified as the 68-year-old woman who died early this morning from injuries caused when she was hit by a cyclist last month as she crossed the street near the Embarcadero. Police say Cherney died at 5:20 a.m.
The Washington, D.C., resident was in the crosswalk at Mission Street at about 8:30 a.m. on her way to the Embarcadero when a speeding cyclist blew a red light and hit her.
As of October 3, 25 civil courtrooms will be closed indefinitely, and the clerks will have their office hours cut by an hour a day. Two hundred court employees will be getting pink slips.
But the compassionate hipster inside us wants to know: What does this mean for bike messengers? San Francisco's tattooed urban cowboys who pedal through traffic in tight jeans on fixies to hit the courthouse before closing time with court docs -- what about them?
"Bike messengers' primary bread and butter is civil filings," says Ben Thompson, a worker at the criminal courts records room at the Hall of Justice, who just happens to be a former tattooed bike messenger himself. "They're not completely going away, but stuff's not going to happen in civil court for five years, so attorneys are going to be doing a third of the work we were doing before."
David Mark Clark, the crystal therapist and tennis instructor accused of running down four cyclists in a six-minute rampage last year, appeared in court yesterday where his lawyers say he will claim insanity.
A judge ruled yesterday that there was enough evidence for Clark to stand trial on attempted murder charges. His attorney, Brendan Conroy, told reporters that Clark has had a history of mental illness, and will use insanity as his defense.
While most high school students are lazing on the beach or waiting tables at the local diner this summer, 17-year-old Cameron Swengel, from York, PA, decided to take on a more challenging project -- biking across the U.S. to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
He joined three other friends, and together, they are finishing their last leg of the 3,000-mile journey. They will be arriving in San Francisco today to celebrate the end of an arduous yet virtuous trip.
The cyclist who was hit by a truck yesterday morning as she rode along Mission Street downtown died last night. Medical authorities identified the victim as 25-year-old Nancy Ho, a San Francisco resident.
Ho was hit yesterday at about 8:04 a.m. when she made an illegal left-hand turn at the intersection of Mission and Fremont. A food delivery truck collided with Ho, who was not wearing a helmet at the time, police said.
