4
L E H A V R E
N E W S
S E P T E M B E R The Saga of the Bicycle Thief
BY JUDY DENSKY
Le Havre Board Member and Neighbor
This is the tale of a very gutsy lady and exceptional
teamwork.
It started on Thursday, August 27, at about 7:30pm
when I came home and noticed my bicycle was not
in the bike rack. OMG, did someone steal my bike?
I had to join a Zoom meeting at 8:30 so didn’t have
much time to be too upset or do anything.
After my meeting, I called our 109 local police
precinct and told them what happened, but they had
no one there and told me to call 911, which I did. I
gave my particulars and my sad tale and they told me
to call back Friday.
At 7:30am on Friday I called back and spoke to
someone (Operator 1523, as they no longer give out
their names) who put me in the pipeline. At 9:15am
two police officers from the 109 precinct came to my
building for a report. I met them downstairs to show
them the empty space in the bike rack where my light
blue bicycle had been. They told me they would bring
my information back to the office and input it but
didn’t give me any hope of locating the bike.
Just then Owen, our porter, saw the police and
asked what happened. When I told him, he said he
and another porter saw a guy riding a bike from under
our building and into the parking lot, across the connecting
path into the adjacent lot and put the bike on
top of his waiting car. Owen didn’t realize it was not
the guy’s bike and that he was stealing it. The police
noted this in their report and left.
I called Margaret Costello, our General Manager,
who sent one of our men to check cameras around
the building. Then, a few hours later, she sent me
the videos and photos; it was very clear we had our
man, but how to find him? Margaret called again and
was as agitated as I that this guy stole the bike in
broad daylight. She told me another bike had gone
missing from the same bike rack on Thursday and it
was my neighbor Jenny’s (spelled Yenny) bike. That
was the third bike in a month stolen from our building—
4 LEHAVRE COURIER | SEPTEMBER 2020 | WWW.QNS.COM
something had to be done about it. I went to
her apartment to commiserate with her and get more
facts. I showed her the videos and photos and she
asked if she could have them.
Jenny is a smart gal and posted the pictures
on Whitestone Facebook and the Nextdoor
Whitestone internet sites and by evening she got
a response from someone in Whitestone, probably
a neighbor, who recognized the guy’s shirt and
shape and gave her his location. I told this to the
police but they said it had to go through channels
and I had to wait till a detective was assigned to
my case. I said if we wait he will dispose of or
cut up the bikes! But the guy on the phone said he
could do nothing more.
Well, Jenny and I were both seething mad at
how audacious the thief was. The next morning,
on Saturday, Jenny went out on her morning run
and just happened to run past the guy’s house.
Another Whitestone resident happened to be there
too, demanding his stolen bike, and another very tall
guy also told him to give the lady back her bike. The
thief, wearing the same shirt he wore in our photos
from the day before, was caught and was shaking and
agreed to go to Flushing to the store where he had
sold the bikes. Jenny and the other guy whose bike
was stolen went with him to the bank to get cash and
then to Flushing where he returned the money the
storekeeper had given him for the bikes (we think he
was an illegal fence). Jenny saw her bike and mine
in the store for sale and the other guy saw his bike.
He put two bikes in his station wagon, Jenny rode
hers, and they returned to Whitestone. Jenny texted
and called me joyously from her home “I have your
bike!” and sure enough, it was in her living room
when I returned home.
So a tenacious lady, two strong guys, and a good
neighbor Samaritan solved the bike mystery and this
time they were recovered. What a team effort! Let’s
hope the police act and arrest the bicycle thief soon
and maybe the storekeeper too.
To all of us in the Le Havre community: If you ever
see anyone suspicious on the property, please report it
immediately to the Management Office.
~JUDY
LeHavre Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd.
Bayside, NY 11361
718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 Sales fax: 718-631-3498
e-mail: editorial@qns.com
PUBLISHER & EDITOR Victoria Schneps-Yunis
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Joshua A. Schneps
EDITOR IN CHIEF Jill Davis
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