The Bike Thieves and 10 Bloody Stitches

©2025 T. Agnew-craiyon.com

La Santona: What have they stolen?Antonio Ricci: My bike.La Santona: What can I say? I can only tell you what I see. Listen: you’ll find it straight away or not at all. Understand? You’ll find it straight away or not at all. Keep your eyes open. — Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica

When my son was eight and full of adolescent confidence after learning to ride a bicycle, he took a nosedive onto the parking lot asphalt of a church during a Cub Scouting event.

The tumble ripped his chin open, but luckily that was the extent of his injuries. With blood pouring from his wound, I quickly grabbed my first aid kit and cleaned and bandaged the best I could. I checked for any missing teeth and I was relieved to see them all there (minus the ones he lost to the Tooth Fairy).

I fastened his bike to my car, albeit haphazardly, and made my way to the same hospital he was born in. The emergency room was always a busy place, and that day was no different.

By then my son had calmed, but the wait was unbearable, with screaming children and vomiting pregnant mothers. I had parked in the hospital’s fancy parking garage and never gave a thought to the bike hanging precariously off my car, unlocked.

I stood and asked the receptionist how much longer as I gestured to my son. I told her the injury was still bleeding. Plus, my son became more upset when he saw the blood. For the most part, he was brave and all the crying was done.

Then I saw someone I knew — a doctor who was once my aikido student — pass behind the receptionist. “Allen,” I called, and he quickly spun to me.

Allen was finishing med school when he joined my classes years before.

“You sure you want to do this? The wrist twists and assorted arm locks could be detrimental to your career,” I told him then.

“I’m not concerned. I need it for stress-relief,” he said. “Med school.”

It didn’t surprise me. Over the years, I’d seen professional baseball players, pianists, and other assorted professionals join my classes despite the danger of ruining careers.

One day, a young, up-and-coming Baltimore Orioles’ baseball player pulled up in brand new Porsche, wanting, he said, “to be tossed about,” not concerned about losing his million-dollar salary.

Allen smiled over the receptionist’s shoulder. “Sensei,” he said, “what brings you in?”

“My son took a tumble on his bike. I’d say he needs at least ten stitches.”

He nodded to the receptionist. “Let them come back,” he said. He appeared at the entry door, stethoscope slung over his shoulder and waved us in, fist bumping my son.

Not only did Allen get us into the ER, he insisted he do the stitches. After cleaning the wound and putting my son at ease with funny jokes and an easy demeanor, he nodded at me. “You are spot-on. He needs at least ten stitches.” He grinned behind his mask. “Looks like the asphalt got in the way, my man,” he said to him. “It’s an easy fix. A little Elmer’s glue and you’re good as new.”

My son perked up. “You’re not going to use glue, are you?”

Allen’s calm hands ran the needle and thread through my son’s lower lip and chin. I thought about how many times I’d applied a sankyo to his hands. Obviously, his hands worked fine. He finished in minutes, and I thanked him.

When we got to the hospital garage, my son’s bike was gone. Someone had stolen it off my car at a world-class hospital.

On the drive home, my son said, “Well, daddy, maybe they needed my bike.” Even at seven, my son understood compassion and forgiveness. I beamed and boiled at the same time.

I later wrote a letter to the local newspaper titled The Bike Thief. The hospital did not welcome that letter. It was an embarrassment to the city, but my intention was for the hospital to make the garage safer for others.

Someone stole my seven-year-old’s cherished new bike from the WestCoast Hospital Emergency valet garage while they were stitching up his bloody face. My son charitably said the thief probably needed it.A thief stole the bike from a little boy who was at the hospital to get ten stitches in his face because he fell from that bike. This is a boy who would have given the thief that bike if he had only asked. Stealing from hospital garages where people park, sometimes in dire circumstances of life and death, does not set a good example for humanity — or the city. — WestCoast Herald Tribune

Shorty after, I received a call from the director of the hospital, informing me that a brand new bicycle (a $600 Cannondale) was waiting for my son, compliments of a random surgeon and staff. While I never knew if that was Allen, I didn’t doubt it.

Bicycle theft surfaced in the late 19th century as bicycles became invaluable, commercially produced property. The early, primitive bikes served as an inexpensive mode of transport, and for many, a necessity.

After both wars, bike theft became a symbol of postwar hardship. The 1948 Italian film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) focused on the hopelessness of the era, where stealing a bicycle was a crime created by hardship rather than sophisticated enterprise.

In the timeless film, an unemployed man in post-WWII Rome embarks on a tireless search with his young son to find his stolen bike. The bike is a necessity for work, and without it, he cannot provide for his child. A stunning portrayal of social inequality and the human condition, the film represents what theft, at times, really is. Desperation and need.

In 1989 Paris, The Journal des Machines a Coudre et Velocipedes wrote of a growing issue of bicycle theft in the city. Bike rental shops, popular with tourists and locals alike, frequently reported stolen bikes to the police.

By the late 1990s, bicycle theft rose again — this time because of a combination of growing cycling popularity, a demand for high-end mountain bikes, and global use of inadequate locks. The poorly constructed U-locks and other shabby forms proved easy to snip with bolt cutters (it would later launch high-end locks that were nearly impossible to hack).

During the pandemic, bicycle theft increased. Thieves stole bikes at alarming rates and then resold them at outrageous prices. Some of this was because of higher bike prices, driven by new cyclists bored out of their minds from isolation. Used bikes became a rarity, and if you did find one, you paid an outrageous amount for it.

In larger cities like Seattle and Denver, thieves capitalized on the sentiment of the pandemic and the sudden craving for outdoor activities. People purchased kayaks, small watercraft, scooters, and bicycles in numbers never seen before.

Bicycle crime has morphed from quick street grabs to sophisticated, organized global networks trafficking high-end bikes for profit.

Today, the bike thieves persist, driven, I surmise, by rising costs for everything and the lucrative trade of used parts. With so many expensive bikes on the streets, thieves quickly discovered they were easy targets with high return sales.

Online social media platforms provide an easy marketplace to sell stolen bikes and parts, most from the even higher-end bikes made from carbon fiber and e-bikes with sophisticated electronics produced en masse.

Yet the catalyst for bike theft — and indeed all theft — is driven by psychology and influenced by economies and society. While all theft is morally repulsive, stealing a child’s bike remains embedded in a less-than prudent crime.

Yet my son’s stolen bike incident occurred during the housing bubble debacle when many were desperate. The thieves probably never considered the warped scruples of stealing a child’s bike.

Today, with the economy in crisis and the blurring of increased social violence, the bike thieves are at it again.

Recently, someone stole a friend's child's bike from my porch, and later, someone also snatched the new one I replaced it with, including a brand new helmet.

Instead of becoming bitter, I used my son’s timeless mantra — maybe they needed the bike.

And perhaps Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves says it best.

You’ll find it straight away or not at all. Keep your eyes open.