Grafton County recently filed felony indictments against four suspected bicycle thieves who together are allegedly responsible for no fewer than 10 bike thefts from around the College.
Hanover Police Detective Sergeant Frank Moran said police arrested one of the four suspects on May 31, and the Grafton County attorney's office is now in the process of arresting the three other individuals.
All four suspects live in Claremont, Moran said.
George Waldron, first assistant attorney for Grafton County, declined to comment on the indictments.
But Waldron's assistant, Sharon Doyle, confirmed that each of the four suspects have already been indicted by grand juries, according to Sharon Doyle
Police began recovering bicycles on June 1, according to Moran, and they have recovered 10 so far. He noted that each of the four suspects were not necessarily involved in each bicycle theft.
"It was an incredible amount of work ... just to find these 10," Moran said.
He said the police conducted several interviews and employed other means to catch up with the alleged Claremont thieves.
Moran said he was not permitted to go into further detail about the case, because it is now in the hands of the county prosecutor.
Although the retrieval of the 10 bicycles is a step in the right direction, Moran said, bike theft still runs rampant on campus.
Since January, more than 30 bicycle thefts have been reported to the Hanover Police, according to Moran.
"We've had a constant problem in the spring and summer, like any college," Moran said.
He noted that many thefts are never reported.
In fact, a few of the 10 recovered bicycles belong to students who never reported their disappearance, an oversight which slows down the process of returning the property to their rightful owners.
"A lot of people see it as hopeless" to report bicycle theft to the police, Moran said.
In late April, five bicycles were stolen from various locations around the College, all within a 24-hour period.
Regarding those unfound bicycles, Moran said, "We didn't have too much success with that group of bikes."
Moran suggested to help safeguard bicycles, a student "should lock it to something secure, not to itself."
Of the 10 recovered bicycles, five had been locked to themselves, he said.
Locking a bicycle through its tires often fails to work, Moran said, because thieves can easily remove the locked tire and steal the rest of the bicycle.
Moran stressed locking bicycles through their frames, to firm permanent fixtures.
