Re: Theft at the Wiss.

I posted this on mtbr, but I'll copy it here too:

My car and a buddy's were broken into in that lot up the road from the Inn a few years ago. We're convinced the guy scoped us out as riders, knew we weren't going to be back anytime soon and went for it. We reported it and I ended up getting my cell phone back. The guy was caught snatching a purse a couple days later and I guess they found a bunch of crap in his apartment. My friend wasn't as lucky, the guy went straight to Kmart (or whatever) in Flourtown and bought some electronics with his credit card.

That lot is bad news, in my opinion. This thread seals it. Luckily there are plenty safer places to park.

Sometimes in shadier areas I'll head out and then once I'm out of view, I'll wait and then turn back to see if there's anything fishy going on around my car. I'd never intend to confront anyone (you never know what they'd be willing to do to you), but I'd sure as hell call the cops.

I'll add here that I have never parked there since and that mtbr thread clinched it if I wasn't sure before. I'd say a few rules of thumb parking anywhere around the Wissahickon would be:

1) Never leave high value items or your wallet in the car
2) Try not to leave ANYTHING attractive in the car and cover anything you do have to leave in there (tools, equipment bags, etc)
3) Try to park in high traffic areas where there are always people around. They're out there, they just might not be as convenient.

That's just my two cents.

Sound advice from many in this thread: My advice: Do not park at Bells Mills lot or up from Valley Green towards Chestnut Hill. Those lots are targeted by scums for some reason. I do see a police car there from time to time but not all the time and these scum only need a few minutes. Impossible to prevent. Definitely park at one of the many neighborhood trailheads. Roxborough has at least 5 that I can think of. These entry points are next to houses with people home and they won't allow this bullsheet. If they see said scum, they will call police immediately. Plus the dumb scum aren't aware of most of these entry points. Check a good map for these Rox entry points: Gorgas Lane, Green Lane, Graykyn Lane (at sports fields) Livezey St. (at the pavillion) Roxborough Ave. (near golf course). Me? I ride from my house. Problem solved  :P

first - this is my first post, i'm a lurker by nature.  i'll try to post more often.
second - i apologize for the long winded post, i'm wordy.
third - in no way do i want to implicate anyone, but this is what i've experienced.  this is more of a heads up.

about a year ago my girlfriend and i went for a ride.  we parked in the upper valley green road lot and there was a guy hanging around, kind of pacing a little bit.  my initial thought was that it was a little odd, but how many times have i been waiting for the guy i'm riding with to show up and i'll pace back and forth?  well, sure enough, we get back to my baja about two hours later and my girlfriend's credit cards have been stolen out of the car.  i have to take the blame on this one because my car was unlocked by accident, so it's my own fault, but it still sucks balls (and a car left accidentally unlocked should not be an invitation to steal something out of it.  people shouldn't even be checking to see if the car is unlocked.  still my fault though.).  everything was left in place, so she didn't even realize it until pnc called about a suspicious purchase they had denied at a best buy in nj.  the people tried three cards in the best buy and only discover let the purchase go through.  (guess which card was canceled...)  i instantly thought of that guy i had seen, and my girlfriend had gotten the same weird vibe but didn't think anything of it at the time.  we called the police, yada yada, they couldn't even tell us which district we had to file the report in, we ended up at three different offices.  best buy had video surveillance of the purchase and just said that if the detective requested it, they would send it in.  never happened.  but that's for another day.

fast forward about a year to early this summer, i was parked at the upper bells mills lot and my friend and i had just gotten back to our cars.  sure enough, i recognized the guy i had seen before my car was broken into.  he was hanging out with another guy with a brand new trek that had obviously never been ridden, seriously.  no mud, nothing.  no rim wear from the brakes.  the two guys were hanging out in a new tan ford explorer.  the bike was gleaming in the sun.  my friend and i had a post-ride recovery snack, chatted for a bit, put our bikes on our racks.  all this took about 30 minutes and the whole time i just kind of kept an eye on these two guys.  the two would alternate between one guy sitting in the explorer and the other fiddling with the bike on the rack.  for thirty minutes.  finally, my friend had to take off, so i got in my car, pretended to talk on my cell phone and sat there and watched.  and watched.  and watched.  this lasted about 30 more minutes, until one of the guys came to the back of the explorer and looked over at me.  as soon as i made eye contact with him, he turned around and got in the car and backed out of the spot and pulled away.  there is no doubt in my mind that these are the guys that broke into my car and many, many others in the lots surrounding the wiss.

the best thing i can say is that any and all of us should just keep our eyes open.  the last thing these guys want are to be noticed or recognized.  obviously, they are trying hard to fit in, but if we pay attention, they obviously don't.  i'm not shy about calling the police or 911 if i see something effed up happening, lord knows if i saw a guy smashing a car window with a branch, i'd be on the phone in less than a second.

certainly, this is not a mountain biker-only issue.  any user of the park is at risk and if enough noise about this is made from PMBA, FOW, and any users of forbidden drive and the upper trails, all of the lots will be safer.

btw, i park at northwestern now.  and yes, my car is always locked and i always check it before i leave my car.  ::)

i'll go post somewhere else that is a happier topic now...

I went out on Thursday afternoon and hit trails off of Wises Mill Road.  I made sure I didn't park at VG.....Parked on the other side of Henry Ave. in a neighborhood.

Aw, geez...  How do the thieves get into a locked trunk?  Wish we had some kinda surveillance equipment.  They must be hiding somewhere in the woods and watching.

Anyway, it's the 92nd police district - 215-686-7292

You are going to have to stop in the cop shop.  There is a point to reporting it.  As a victim of ID theft in the past, I would definitely file a police report to get it on record.  I would also recommend reporting it to the Federal Trade Commission.  Here's the link http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/.  The FTC has a list of steps to take making it a little less painful.

dannmer, great ideas and enthusiasm.

anyway we could have you start up a PMBA committee to address this? (if the board is for it of course)

I know we've all bandied about a lot of ideas, and FOW has been talking with the police, lawyers and FPC to run a surveillance mission. As you can imagine, there is so much red tape it is unbelievable, but I know they are working on it.

I think signs and fake cameras and outreach at the very least could be done relatively easily.

As far as rangers, I've never seen one on the trails in 5 years, and I've only seen them on the Forbidden Trail three times. Even though FPC got it's first significant budget increase in 30 years we won't see new park rangers any time soon. I heard that in the 70's there were 70 park rangers in this area and now there are two.

I know one thing we had decided is when we do approach the police or rangers that we do it with answers and ideas rather than just hitting them with complaints. We want to team up with them rather than antagonize.  Personally I've found very sad that police will show up to write a tickets on a crowded day to ruin the outing of many a park user but they can't be bothered to come out to take a police report when someone has become a victim. Nonetheless, you catch more flies with honey.

All good ideas Dan. This really does suck that care more about tickets than doing something about this ongoing problem.

I've got one more: Don't park there.

Jacalyn mentioned an interesting point - that her car doesn't have an alarm in it.  Seems that in most city settings alarms are pretty useless, but in the park it might be noticed.  Can anyone who's been a victim correlate the crime to the lack of alarm?  Certainly the thieves are sophisticated enough to know which cars come with alarms. 

I guess my number was up last nite.  This time at the lot fed by Wise' Mill at VGI!  Bastids punched my lock core in with a flathead.  Yay.  $110 in parts, $40 for the jimmijammers to reinforce the lock mechanism to foil the next guy (and most likely cause them to bust the window instead).  Nothing really important as I haul all the good stuff in my camelback but it's annoying to lose a leatherman, oakley goggles, comfy shoes, prescription glasses light charger and extra riding gloves.  The plus side, those mooks get to deal with a handfull of my stank-ass boxers.  Savor that aroma, punk asses. 

that blows.

I know you know this Karl, but for general info I recommend parking at the Pavilion as it seems to have few problems. It also allows you to start on the upper trails without making the climb, or you can get to VGI in two minutes. However that lot closes sometime after dark.

An even better pick is the Wigard Rd. entrance at the Boy Scout House. It doesn't close and is more off-the-grid, but getting to VGI is a bit trickier even though it's directly above.

Right there too is a trail along Henry that runs toward Wises and allows you to jump on at the top of Demo 1. Parking at the link below looking over the fields puts you adjacent to that trail.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.052761,-75.226586&ll=40.052382,-75.226229&spn=0.001653,0.003484&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=23.875,57.630033&num=1&vpsrc=6&t=m&z=19

I've been thinking about having a pit bull installed in my vehicle just for this reason.