I'd love to get the VIN number, but there are some challenges:

1. There is almost always somebody home.
2. I would need to hop the fence and I am recovering from knee surgery.
3. The adjacent property owners are old and I cannot them at risk of retalation.
4. I live 75 mile away.

Other than that, I am all over it.


Omalley - Thank you for what you do and for the excellent clarification

You know the people that complain about the cops are the ones that are doing the illegal acts.

Ok, so I have finally had enough of the cop-bashing on this one. First and foremost, I am a police officer (not for Fedaral Way, or even in King County). If you can't get past the fact that I am a police officer, go ahead and ignore the rest of this post...but for the remanider who are willing to listen-

There is no probalable cause here, as defined by case law. There is certainly reasonable suspicion, but no probable cause. Logically speaking, I would agree that this whole situation smells really bad, and that this place has stolen property (and other illegal activities) written all over it. I am not familiar with any FWPD officers, so I am not about to judge (or defend) them blindly. However, I can offer some explanations.

First and foremost, no search warrant= no legal standing to be on the property, much less check VIN's etc. Even with standing to be on property, checking VIN's would be sketchy at best. Remember, WA is the center of Liberalism in the free world, and King County is the capitol of that bullshit line of thinking when it comes to combating crime. Even most good proactive police I know have felt like throwing in the towel due to constant declining of cases, bullshit supreme court rulings, and the 9th circuit court of appeals being so @#*#ed up that the US supreme court will not even recognize their rulings as precedant when making rulings of their own.

Even with a warrant, we are no longer allowed to check serial/VIN numbers during the execution of the warrant, unless they are in plain view (turning the handlebars would not qualify) and/or we are specifically looking for stolen bikes in the warrant. If the warrant was for dope, etc, there would be no probable cause to check the bike VIN's. Such is life when you police in Washington.

Which brings me to the crux of my issue with the comments. People are so quick to blame cops for perceived laziness and/or "not caring" about the person's issue. Most police do care. Most police are pro-active. But imagine that you work hard, day after day, doing a thankless job, putting your life on the line. You miss family appointments to go to court, stay late writing reports, etc. You go to court repeatedly only to have the case sontinued each time. you finally see the inside of a court room, only to have the judge exclude a bunch of the evidence because it might adversely affect the jury (like the fact that your DUI arrest had 3 priors and was suspended for same). The jury acquits the dirtbag because they only got part of the story and the lawyer convinced them that they should have pity on his/her client. You turn around and the victim in the case is now saying that they saw the guy walking the streets, thus he didn't get punished, and thus it must be your fault??? How would you feel when all you tried to do was make arrests and earn your paycheck??? 10-plus years of that, and very few people who make these criticisms would be any better (or even as good) with their attitude. We as police get balmed for every shortfall of the crim j system, because we are the ones people have contact with.

not necessarily. my co-worker, the asshat, HABITUALLY flips the bird to any LEO he sees. He said it stems from speeding tickets during college. Uh-huh, right. I got my share of tickets when I was young and learned to slow down the hard way. He's in a position of authority and is a supposed corporate role model. I think he's a P.O.S.

Why not go over to the house and just ask about the bikes tell them your looking for a bike for your kid and would they be interested in salling one.Maybe even say your not interested in the paper work because it will only be ridden on private property.If they don't want to sale ask to look at the bikes tell them you like the graphics and just snap some pics with your ph.
I recovered my sons high dallar bmx bike like this told the guys at the skat park that I liked that crank set up could I take a look at it. flipped the bike over to look at crank checked # and they where busted called cops all is history.

I learned my lesson, should have shot the dirty bastards in the first place.

Why are you guys accusing them of stealing bikes just because they have bikes in their back yard?

Are they locked up?

Because:

They don't have a clue about the bikes.
They don't have the coin to buy fairly new bikes.
They have them semi-hidden as far from the house and street as possible.
This is not the first batch of bikes to come and go.
They don't even know where to ride them.




Nope

Why are you guys accusing them of stealing bikes just because they have bikes in their back yard?

I think a posse may be in order. We shall strike at night. Any possibility of cutting a hole in a neighbors fence to wheel them onto safe property? Once out of their yard we should wheel them into a rented U-haul and whisk them down to the cop shop in hopes of returning stolen property or proving that this crazy assortment of machines actually belongs haphazardly/unsecured in someone's backyard in Federal Way.

You do that and the bikes are actually owned by these folks and you're in for some prosecution. Nothing good can come out of that.