BPD AIMS TO TAP BRAKES ON BIKES
‘TENFOLD’ POLICE PRESENCE SETS SIGHTS ON ILLEGAL RIDES
Hoping to prevent serious injury or even death, police said yesterday they’ll be out “tenfold” this spring and summer working alongside partners to rid city roads and parks of daredevils on mopeds and illegal all-terrain bikes endangering themselves and the public.
“Nobody who goes out on these roads and rides like these kids is immune to the laws of physics. It’s just a matter of time,” said officer Rachel McGuire, a spokeswoman with Boston police. “What we’re trying to avoid is someone getting seriously injured or killed.”
McGuire said the department’s Auto Theft Unit is aware of “Bike Life” members who are known for weaving in and out of traffic, driving on sidewalks and doing dangerous stunts like popping wheelies or jumping on the seat of their moving vehicles and riding while in a nearly upright stance.
Members of the crew of dirt bikers are often driving uninsured and unregistered vehicles, or ATVs which are prohibited from city roads and parks, McGuire said.
“We’re going to be out tenfold,” McGuire said. “They’re going to be targeting specific groups known to them, specific people known to them.”
A recent joint effort between the cops and the environmental police resulted in the seizure of three off-road vehicles and the arrest of several dirt bikers. These bikers have been known to plague drivers and pedestrians in Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester.
McGuire cited a collaboration in May 2015 between BPD, Walpole police and the environmental police in Walpole that resulted in 14 arrests while cops impounded six vehicles and 11 dirt bikes and ATVs. In 2015, more than 220 illegal rides were taken off the road. There were 60 arrests last year while a “significant number” of illegal ATVs and dirt bikes were impounded, cops said.