Most of you have heard of my son Brandon by now. His 8th grade class went on a trip to Marine World on Tuesday. He had a great time, until he returned to the school to find that his bike had been stolen, along with four other bikes. The school had a locking cage for the bikes, but for some reason when they opened it after school, they decided to leave it unlocked. Then the thieves just helped themselves. I found him walking home from school with tears streaming down his face. He explained to me what happened, and I called the police. They basically told me that if I didn’t see who stole the bike, then there was nothing they could do about it.

The next day my wife called the school to see what thy planned to do, and they bluntly said nothing. They said they are not responsible for the kids bikes. To make things worse, he rode his no-ped to school to school the following day, and during school hours it was stolen too! My gut urge is to file a small-claims suit against the school. They provided a locked area for the bikes and knew that they had kids with bikes that would not be returning until after 7pm that night, but left the cage unlocked and unattended. This is negligence in my eyes.

And the attitude of the police…they asked me what happened, and they asked if I saw who stole the bike. I told them I wouldn’t be calling them if I did. They said “Well, if you didn’t see anyone, then there’s really nothing we can do” She said she’d send me some paperwork to fill out that they’d put on record, and gave me a number to call where they store lost and found bikes. But she said not to get my hopes up. Whatever happened to the police getting off their asses (excuse the French) and doing some investigation to see if anyone else might have seen anything? Now we the citizens who pay their salaries have to do their work for them? Just because this isn’t a drug bust, or a convenience store robbery doesn’t mean it isn’t important?

If you think it’s not important, then spend some time looking into the sad eyes of a child who has been violated. Who had something stolen for him something that he values very much. Tell him that you don’t have the time to “look into it”. Make him understand that.

I went out yesterday and bought him a new bike. It’s not nearly as good as his other one. That was a gift from his BIL, and has been modified into a racing bike. It had all the bells and whistles on it. I’ll never be able to replace it. But most importantly, I’ll never be able to replace his faith in people, That will have to come in time, lots of time.

Sad, isn’t it?

Thanks for listening,
Greg



"Beauty is truth, truth is beauty - that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know"