Ely police are asking for help as they deal with suspected bike tampering in town.
According to a post on the Ely Police Department’s Facebook page earlier this week, the department has “received multiple reports this year of front tires coming off children’s bicycles while being ridden, resulting in injuries.”
Police are concluding that “these incidents may not be accidental but the result of someone intentionally tampering with the bikes.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how many occurrences of potential bike tampering have taken place, or the extent and detail of the reported injuries to local kids.
“We’re still kind of trying to track that down,” assistant police chief Mike Lorenz said earlier this week. “As far as we know there were three total incidents in the last month or so. One of those was called in to 911 for an ambulance, and our officers responded to help out. After this most recent one, which happened over the weekend, the father is the one who put it out on Facebook that it happened to his son and he (also) called the police.”
Police are continuing to investigate. “We’re trying to track down other families, just so we can look and see if there are other similarities,” said Lorenz. “It seems very similar in all three cases.”
But police are calling for parents and guardians to be on the lookout, asking them to:
• Regularly check your children’s bikes and teach them how to look for loose or tampered parts;
• Bring b ikes i nside a t night and avoid leaving them unattended when possible.
If you discover your child’s bike—or any bike— has been tampered with, please contact the Ely Police Department immediately by calling 911.
Those with information about who may be responsible are also asked to contact law enforcement, “We urge you to call us,” said the department’s Facebook post. “Your assistance is important in keeping our community safe. Thank you for helping us protect our kids.”
Lorenz added “if it’s an emergency call 911. If somebody sees something, call 911 that’s the best bet if they see something and we need to know it immediately. If they have other information they can call us directly. And once we look into it, we will do a follow up.”
