Nice work, I tell Yoshioka when he recounts the story. They took him in for questioning and 40 minutes later had a confession. Nobody sells a bike for $30, the cops told him. Where did he get it? The crook opted to take his chances on talking his way out of trouble. Maybe allows himself a laugh.Īfter determining he wasn’t carrying anything to jimmy open a window or door, the cops turned their attention to the bike. Put an Angeleno bike thief in the same situation and he keeps biking. This speaks volumes about the Japanese respect for authority. The big knapsack on his back also attracted attention: It could have held tools for breaking into homes. The guy on my bike was obviously very drunk, a crime in itself, Yoshioka explains. Suginami is a high break-and-enter neighborhood, Yoshioka tells me later (another blow to the stereotype), one of the worst in Tokyo. It was after midnight, and the cops were on the lookout for suspicious behavior. The most common sight at a koban is a uniformed officer hunched over his desk map, tracing a route with his finger for a confused citizen.īut it was from his koban in Suginami Ward about three miles from my home that Yoshioka had spotted the bike thief. In my experience, kobans appeared to be little more than glorified information booths where people stop in to ask for directions. These substations are scattered across Japanese neighborhoods, a way for the police to keep an eye on the comings and goings and, in theory at least, quickly respond to a crime or accident. OFFICER Yoshioka works out of a tiny, two-room outpost called a koban, a staple of community policing in Japan. Officer Shinya Yoshioka had recovered my bike and captured the thief. I was still contemplating a visit to the impounded bike lot a day later when an officer from a neighboring ward office of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police called me at home. Tokyo is awash in bikes, and despite long rows of parking stands at every station, there are never enough spaces. But I was so surprised I thought the ever-efficient Tokyo bicycle attendants might have impounded it for not being parked in a designated bicycle rack. So I was more embarrassed than angry when I went back to get my bike that Sunday morning and found it gone. Not even when I’m leaving it outside a busy train station overnight. My bicycle was available because I never lock it. It was a crime of necessity: Steal the wheels or walk. He had slept well past his stop and was kicked off the last train of the night at the last station on the line. He was drunk - it was payday and he had over-celebrated. It has a bell but no night light as required by Japanese law - which, as you’ll see, is a misdemeanor that the Japanese police choose to enforce.īut the guy who stole my bike from outside a Tokyo train station one recent Saturday night wasn’t looking for anything flashy. Los Angeles Times Friday MaHome Edition Main News Part A National Desk 0 inches 35 words Type of Material: CorrectionĬrime in Japan: A Column One in Wednesday’s Section A about the recovery of a stolen bike in Japan said that Japanese police officers do not carry guns.
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