How three unlikely Oaklanders teamed up to solve a crime
By Sondra Hall \| OaklandNorth Guest Column \| December 6, 2010
A few weeks ago I was in a Temescal neighborhood cafe, seated at the table nearest to the door, typing on my laptop while meeting with a colleague when I felt a presence behind me as if someone was going to give me a hug. Before I knew it a man’s arms reached around me, not for a hug, but to grab my laptop and run out the door. I leapt up from the table and ran out after him but it took only 10 seconds for him to run down the sidewalk, hop into a waiting car and drive off.
I yelled to the startled bunch of onlookers “Get the license plate!” but the black pick-up pulled out into traffic and disappeared down the street. Stunned, I went back into the cafe. What now? My colleague called the police and I sat down at the table and cried. I was certain that this machine — my mobile office, the piece of equipment that IS my business — was long gone. All of my e-mails and assorted information was readily available to the men who had made off with my computer since it had been open and I was typing when it was grabbed out of my hands.
I decided to write them an e-mail. Maybe the two of them would see it as they sped away to wherever theythought they could best take advantage of their new acquisition. The subject line read: “To the person that just stole my computer — I’ll give you the money; just give me my computer back.”
I was pacing outside the cafe waiting for the police to come when a guy on a bike rode up, hopped off and said, “I got the license plate.”
What?
Yes. The man who came to be known to me as “Bicycle Bill” happened to see the whole incident go down and decided to pedal as fast as he could to catch the crooks.
Not only did he pursue them and succeed in catching up with them, Bicycle Bill outfoxed them too. The get-away car took off heading north on Telegraph but his hunch was that they were going to go around the block and then head south, towards downtown Oakland. So he took off heading south and just as he suspected, the pick-up zoomed by him and he pedaled like hell to catch up.
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