The LSU Police Department has increased its efforts to mitigate the bicycle theft problem on campus after the recent spike in thefts, and the efforts are already yielding positive results.
 
Police have made seven arrests related to the thefts and recovered more than 20 bikes reported stolen, according to Det. Jason Bettencourtt, LSUPD spokesman.
 
The seven people arrested all live in neighborhoods north of campus, which made it easy for them to walk to campus and ride the bicycles back, Bettencourtt said.
There were 67 reported bicycle thefts on campus from June to October, and the number peaked in October with 25 reported cases, Bettencourtt said.
 
“That’s well above our average,” he said. “Those numbers are extremely high for LSU’s campus.”
 
LSUPD responded by placing officers on special assignments to identify the people responsible and to retrieve the stolen bicycles, Bettencourtt said.
 
“We had plain-clothed officers saturate the areas where the thefts were happening,” he said. “We also had extra patrols and surveillance.”
 
Bettencourtt said the new initiatives generated instant results.
“We’ve had a lot less bicycle thefts,” he said. “We saw an immediate drop in the numbers.”
 
November has already seen a decrease in the number of reported thefts, with 11 reported as of Nov. 29, according to LSUPD daily crime reports.
 
Bettencourtt said one of the main reasons for the bicycle thefts pertains to the quality of the bike lock, adding that while cable locks are often the least expensive, they are the easiest to cut through.
 
“It’s also the way people are locking them,” he said. “When you only lock it through the front tire, it’s really easy for someone to take the frame.”
 
Bettencourtt said another problem is that students aren’t registering their bicycles, making it difficult to legally prove a bike’s ownership, Bettencourtt said.
 
“We need to have something that identifies it as yours,” he said.
LSUPD began offering students bicycle registration this year for $5 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Bettencourtt said, adding that the registration numbers are kept on record and are run every time a bike is recovered, whether it be by LSUPD or the Baton Rouge Police
Department.
 
Bettencourtt said community involvement is also crucial and that students should report any suspicious activity to LSUPD.
 
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Contact Sarah Eddington at
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