SEATTLE - You can see it in his face, 6-year-old Rocco Marckx loves his bike. He is already doing tricks and learned to ride without training wheels, but somebody decided to steal his bike and his smile.
In July a thief grabbed the bike from the garage of his condo complex.
"I thought it was missing at first," said dad Michael Marckx. "We walked around the block to take a look for it and couldn't find it at all."
As Rocco's dad was filing a police report, the stolen bike appeared on an online pawn shop reporting database.
"I was really skeptical I would get the bike back it's good to see the system works," said Michael.
According to the dad, the thief sold the bike at a pawn shop located just one block away. Within a couple of hours, the boy and his bike were reunited.
"Happy because the policeman got it back," said Rocco.
Bikes are a popular item in the neighborhood. It turns out, two people along the same street had their bikes stolen at about the same time.
This second victim used the new Seattle police online reporting system to alert officers of her stolen bike.
A detective matched the bike's serial number to one sold to the Pawn Exchange shop in south Seattle.
"Coincidentally, the same day she reported it stolen it showed up in another data base as being pawned at a pawn shop in south Seattle," said Mark Jamieson, Seattle Police Dept.
The bike theft cases have been referred to the Seattle City Attorney's Office. Both cases are being reviewed by prosecutors for possible charges.
To add a comment, please register or login.