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Police seize nearly two dozen dirt bikes, scooters in Dorchester

Seized dirt bikes in Dorchester

Seized bikes. Photo by BPD.

Boston Police report officers seized 22 motorcycles, dirt bikes and scooters and one ATV on Tuesday on Lincoln Street in Dorchester.

Police say they got a tip about several "improperly stored" dirt bikes in the rear of 23 Lincoln St. With help from Boston firefighters, ISD inspectors and state environmental police, officers secured 11 bikes there.

While on scene, officers observed an additional twelve motorcycles, scooters and an ATV being improperly stored in a neighboring yard and were able to impound those as well.

Earlier:
Cops call on jakes to help seize dirt bikes at Mission Main.
Police seize more scooters, this time in Dorchester.

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Comments

Improper storage, how about busting the ones that are improperly driving on our streets.

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It's pretty hard to drive an impounded vehicle.

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Other posters on UHub have hashed this out. BPD doesn't want to chase kids on dirt bikes w/ no helmets on, because inevitably, there will be a kid killed, and the community outcry will never be worth it. This is the easiest way. It stops young people when they're not endangering themselves and others.

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Uh, shouldn't "dead kid" be a more pressing concern than "people are upset that a kid died"?

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Obviously. Did I have to preface that?

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I see these dirt bikes on sidewalks and in the bike lane fairly frequently. It is kind of strange to see someone driving a motorized vehicle without license plate. They go pretty fast -- much faster than a bike. Also, it's not just kids who drive them.

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Probably because BPD can't even deal with the cars, trucks, buses and bikes that break the law daily on our streets. Or don't care to.

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Keep 'em coming.

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I think that's 3 recent seizures of dirt bikes, etc. Has anyone heard if any of them have turned out to be stolen?

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Most likely candidates for stolen status are the motorcycles and scooters which are street legal and used by many regular folks. Hence easy to find/steal. The motorcycles can easily be checked via VINs but the smaller 50cc scooters are often harder to trace although it's gotten better with the newer registration requirements. I've got a scooter that classes as a motorcycle in MA and thus has plates & VIN and the 1st time I went to pick it up at the tow lot after it had been stolen it was leaning against a row of 40+ rusted out 50c scooters -- the lot operator said they had been there forever and were effectively impossible to trace or return without a VIN or plate to check.

The quads and dirtbikes are more interesting. Someone had to trailer them in from somewhere? Could be stolen or legit bought cheap off of craigslist in the burbs or NH or something. Since they are not exactly road legal here you gotta go out of your way to want to procure and operate one in the city. I could be totally wrong though -- maybe there is a motorcycle shop in the city that sells them with a wink and a nod along the lines of ".. you can only use these in your backyard you know ... wink wink " -- easy to bring in a container load of chinese dirtbikes if there is a market for them.

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On many scooters in Dorchester suggestion these are stolen.

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Everyone thinks it's OK for them to just be going in these yards confiscating bikes until these kids are left with nothing to do this summer and they get back to shooting each other and the money y'all spent on a dirt bike task force took away from the force y'all are gonna be crying for when that happens then let's see y'all comments

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Since this is not something that anyone from within 300 miles of Boston would ever write, we'uns are wondering what part of Dixie it was posted from. Just so youse know...

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Use of "Y'all" not entirely correct.

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Around here, it's "youse guys".

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... "y'all's".

"Youse guys" is also common in parts of the Chicago area. As in (said to us by a cousin), "Youse guys sure talk funny". ;-)

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that my use of "youse" was an attempt at ironic humor.

Since we're supposed to be laughing.

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Y'all is used widely in Boston by AAVE speakers. Also by many in the queer community who like it because it's gender-neutral.

But to the y'all-user's bigger point, WTF? The kids I know who ride these things around being idiots are not violent criminal types. They do stupid things as long as they know they're not likely to get caught, just like most of us did when we were teens and young adults. When you were a kid, would you suddenly have gone around committing violent acts if your dumb hobbies were curtailed? I didn't think so. These kids aren't going to do so either just because they're mostly Black and Hispanic.

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To the actual point, at least they won't be firing at each other from dirt bikes at high speed.

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Riding the bikes though town recklessly IS trouble and illegal. The bikes aren't keeping them from doing bad things, the bikes are the bad things!

You make it sound like the kids have two options: Find a gun and shoot anything that moves or ride dirt bikes recklessly and illegally though the city. A majority of kids do neither.

Did it occur to you that perhaps the kids who are doing one illegal activity (dirt bike riding) might be the same kids predisposed to do other illegal activities? Might as well take away the illegal bikes and send a non-jail-time message that you can't just break the law because you want to.

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With your logic, let's just let these kids off for everything below homicide and assault...you know, because if we don't allow them to commit robbery, burglary, shoplifting, harassment, etc they'll just have nothing to do and they'll go back to shooting each other.

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Whatsa matter Tommy,

Did they also tow away that old Chevy Nova you had in your front yard up on cinder blocks? Was it parked too close to your trailer?

Y'all spent this y'all spent that <----you sound like a stand up taxpaying citizen.

Get back in your...oh sorry, I mean Y'all's, pick-em-up truck and pop open another Red White & Blue there, Bubba--oh I mean Tommy. This ridding of two-wheeled pieces of crap from our streets is more useful than any gun buy-back program. It'll all work out just fine.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

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as they already do! On sidewalks, no lights at night, wrong way on streets, no stopping at stop signs or red lights etc. No helmets. Similar behaviors, just no motor.

Or they could sit at home and play Grand Theft Auto!

I guess we need a summer jobs program, if kids wanted to participate.

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Just compare the body counts.

And, no "I was looking at my phone and that horrible cyclist ALMOST KILLED ME" doesn't count.

But, please, tell us some more horror stories to tell us about your travails on the mean streets of Dorchester.

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Both of you. Can we please not hijack this thread to argue about bicycles?

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By all means, get to it as soon as possible. Just do it at home so you don't hit any innocent bystanders.

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Give it a try, it's way more fun, exciting and beneficial to overyone around you than shooting each other. Especially if you use a pistol instead of a revolver.

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Please find my stolen bicycle and those of my neighbors while you're at it. Thank you.

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And while you're at it, I'd like a toilet made out of solid gold.

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But for reals--is there ANYWHERE to go to look for a stolen bike that wasn't super valuable, ie that was probably stolen and abandoned? Does the BPD have a garage full of found/confiscated bikes somewhere? Police auction?

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Probably on HP Ave. Ask the police.

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in Hyde Park. But you can't just go there and pick through the bikes, you have to be sent there, as I was, by the police station that recovered the bike and sent it to the property warehouse.

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Yes BPD. Drop your so called "priorities" like shootings, community outreach, incredible transparency.. and find this man's bicycle.

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but as a life-long, tax-paying Bostonian woman, I also get quality of life issues. I have had several locked bikes stolen over the years, my house and car has been broken into and never once has the BPD shown even the slightest interest in solving these crimes or recovering my property. It's all just a matter of paperwork, if that.

One cop even advised me to move to the suburbs like he did. Yeah, that was really helpful!

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Thanks! Now they can terrorize us because you left them nothing else to do! Who were they hurting again? How about we do a raid on these Cops that park at people's house or establishments to chill while their on duty, that should help make the streets safer. Put them to work like they should be, maybe solve a few of these homicides or get some of these guns off the street which prove to be more dangerous than dirt bikes.

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n/t

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I feel your concern troll and would like to answer your question about "what were they hurting"

  • reckless & dangerous operation of fast machines without wearing helmets
  • reckless & dangerous operation of machines not legal for street use in Boston
  • reckless & dangerous riding on sidewalks and across public/private property
  • Stopping street traffic to perform stunts (repeatedly)
  • noise violations
  • Dangerous storage conditions next to occupied dwellings
  • Shutting down an effing highway tunnel to perform stunts

And your neighbors and fellow citizens felt harmed enough that they repeatedly complained and asked the city to do something about it. And now the city is. You can also add in the fact that neighbors are actively reporting the illegal storage yards which is another huge sign that the neighborhood is significantly bothered by this. Not one of the seizures reported here has happened WITHOUT A TIP FROM A NEIGHBOR.

Please tell me again how the needs of these poor kids outweight the mass complaints and active cooperation of entire neighborhoods?

And finally -- the blunt truth is that this crackdown is ONLY happening because these morons shutdown an 'effing highway tunnel in a way that generated tons of negative attention and visibility. If that had not happened you can pretty much guarantee that the BPD would, in fact, be concentrating on other quality of life issues this summer.

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The highway thing was a one time thing. The bigger problem are the dirtbikes riding through parks on a daily basis, flying past little kids and others trying to enjoy one of the few places in the city where you shouldn't have to worry about noise pollution and the threat of getting hit by a motor vehicle.

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Because summer, right? And YouTube. There have been so much obnoxious, wildly dangerous behavior on these bikes that the number of people jumping up to defend them is minuscule. If I were a fairly law-abiding rider of one of these bikes, I'd be pissed at the a--holes who managed to draw so much attention to themselves with their shitty stunt-riding that they brought on this crackdown. If there's a legitimate outlet for these kids to do their thing, then that's great but anyone saying that the nightly chaos on the streets, sidewalks and parks is the price we have to pay to keep kids from turning to gunplay (not that we haven't been seeing enough of that) then they'd better come up with a better plan.

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If you think they will terrorize the citizens of this city because they can't come up with anything better to do.

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There's this "mother knows best" mentality from random people associated with urban youth. IE that these groups of people have absolutely no self control or personal responsibility. IE they will murder people if they don't have less illegal things to do and if they do murder people it's the fault of The System for not protecting them enough. It's almost if they can never do anything wrong because it's always someone else's fault because these nannies see them as feral animals.

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The notion that one needs a babysitter until age 18 or parents are arrested is enveloping all sense, reason, and sense of responsibility in this country.

BTW, you perfectly described the Duggar family's response to their in-house pedophile. The Catholic School and Fundie Christian notion of there being no self-control, only other control doesn't improve the situation. And, yes CATHOLIC SCHOOL promotes this among boys with those abstinence-only bullshit presentations where girls are told that it is their job to not tempt boys because boys can't control themselves. Own it.

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Yeah, 16 years of Catholic education and I've had abstinence only education. Sorry pal

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What Catholic school(s) and when? You must watch a lot of movies.
12 years of catholic education and never experienced that.
We were always taught; "you are responsible for your own actions", the blame game was never acceptable, regardless of the situation.

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Name: Jason Evert
Location: Spring Valley, California
Websites: www.chastity.com (faith-based version); www.pureloveclub.net (secular version);
www.clubamorpuro.com

Background and Resources
As the CEO of The Pure Love Club (www.chastity.com, www.pureloveclub.net), Jason Evert is a nationally recognized member of the abstinence-only-until-marriage industry. Evert, who holds two degrees in Theology, tours the country extolling the benefits of chastity at religious events, catholic schools, and public middle and high schools.[7] Jason and his wife Crystalina are “full-time apologists with Catholic Answers, the nation's largest lay-run apostolate for apologetics and evangelization.”[8]

Their message is that boys cannot control themselves, and that girls are responsible for the way boys act - when they aren't lying about birth control.

A number of the others here also do presentations with similar themes to Catholic schools nationwide, including the Boston area: http://www.communityactionkit.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&Pag...

This "guest speaker" and "assembly" thing is a fairly recent trend.

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Rapmastah Huckabee is in the house!

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFt7lLqUEAAEQn7.jpg)

And then, there's the good ol' affluenza situation: http://www.theonion.com/article/wealthy-teen-nearl...

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Hence citizens have been complaining about them, just like the complain about loud parties where college students live.

Perhaps if these asshats didn't go too far by pulling their shit on the expressway, they'd have their bikes to play/terrorize this summer.

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Seriously - if you think these kids need better things to do, are you there to help?

Do these programs need funding? Would you like to share that information so people can raise or find money for them?

Stealing dirtbikes and riding them in dangerous ways isn't an appropriate way to "have something to do".

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Anyone that thinks this is an innocent hobby is wrong. Who were they hurting one commenter asks? Well on Halloween night while I was out walking with my 6 year old and his friend we had to jump out of the way when one rode up on the sidewalk in front of us and then did wheelies on a church lawn near us. Incredibly menacing. My other son and his little league team had to deal with someone doing wheelies again at the field behind the zoo (playstead). He is 10. I saw another one topple over in traffic before. If the car hit him who's fault would have it been since the bike was weaving in and out of traffic. Menacing, vandalism and putting others in danger. I am glad to see that the BPD is becoming more aggressive in their pursuit because it was becoming a huge problem and was going to start to become probably easier for drive by shootings, muggings, you name it.....

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I play softball at the Playstead area too, they're ALWAYS out there. It's loud, scary, and completely distracting. They know they're interrupting things and don't care.

Also, they drive all over the Franklin Park Golf Course. Which of course ruins the grass there - already hard enough to keep nice.

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Funny thing is that my motorcycle (street legal & registered) is secured to a ground anchor that is just off of the back stairway of my house. From the sounds of these impounds it is not stored legally that way. Of course I don't think I'm going to have any problems but I had no idea that it wasn't ok to have it there.

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I think it is the number of bikes stored at a private residence. So it essence, it was a unlicensed storage facility.

~~~~~~
Section 28.06 — Obstructions In Premises or Public or Private Ways
No person shall maintain an obstruction on any premises, public or private, including ways, private alleys, yards, and driveways adjacent thereto, which in the opinion of the Head of the Fire Department, would be hazardous to public safety prior to a fire or emergency {text removed}

Material in any form — solid, liquid, or gas — which is toxic or otherwise hazardous to persons, or such material which is or may become flammable, combustible, explosive, or reactive and which could increase the intensity or spread of a fire, shall be considered an obstruction as an object itself or as the contents of a container. {text removed}

Any vehicle which has been left unattended or abandoned, or which has been deposited, parked, or placed to be used as a storage facility shall be considered an obstruction. Wherever the Head of the Fire Department determines that any material, vehicle,
or object is such an obstruction, he shall order the person responsible to remove it from the location at which it constitutes an obstruction with no more delay than the head of the Fire Department may specify in the interest of public safety. If a responsible person cannot be reached on whom to serve such an order, or if the responsible person fails to comply with the order after due notice, the Head of the Fire Department shall notify the Boston Police Department to take whatever immediate action may be necessary to obtain compliance with the order. http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/preven_code_tcm3-4039.pdf

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Can someone point to the specific laws/regulations/ordinances that define what is legal and illegal to drive in Boston, with and without registration and license plate, and also the same regarding illegal/legal storage and repairs?
Also can motorized bikes of any form be used in the bike lanes?

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For motorized scooters, mopeds, motorbikes, etc, to be in the bike lane.

Of course, that doesn't stop motorcycles from using but whatever.

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I saw a kid riding a quad in Moakley Park. Where the heck in the city did someone get a quad/keep a quad? I hope that is one of the ones that is seized. The last thing I'd want to hear about is a dog spooked / run over /ran off into to traffic because of one of these things.

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Midnight Motorcycle Basketball!

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My niece and her husband are part of an ATV and snowmachine riding community up north. There has been a rash of thefts of 4-wheel ATVs of late. I'll let her know about this - it could belong to one of those theft victims.

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Hasn't anyone noticed how the bad behavior of these kids on dirt bikes is exactly how they ride their bicycles, except now they have motors?

When nobody does anything to correct bad bicycling behavior while kids are young, this is what happens when they get older and get their hands on a motorized bicycle.

Bad street behavior is also a product of the media. Stupid stuff on You-Tube, X-games, and all the like. First with bicycles for the younger set, then carried over to motorbikes with older kids.

Police need to enforce traffic laws on bicyclists and hand out real tickets costing real money with real consequences, starting yesterday or this problem will keep growing. Its much easier and safer to solve the problem sooner on bicycles than trying to catch kids going much faster on motorbikes.

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Hasn't anyone noticed how the bad behavior of these kids on dirt bikes is exactly how they ride their bicycles the adults around them drive cars, except now they have motors?

When nobody does anything to correct bad bicycling driving behavior by adults while kids are young, this is what happens when they get older and get their hands on a motorized bicycle vehicle.

Bad street behavior is also a product of the media. Stupid stuff on You-Tube, X-games, and all the like. First with bicycles for the younger set, then carried over to motorbikes with older kids. They hear about how dunk massholes routinely get away with murder, they have no reason to learn the rules!

Police need to enforce traffic laws on bicyclists motorized massholes and hand out real tickets costing real money with real consequences, starting yesterday or this problem will keep growing. Its much easier and safer to solve the problem sooner on bicycles by forcing all adults in motor vehicles to behave or else, than trying to catch kids going much faster on motorbikes.

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If you guys think that the people who ride these dirt bikes behave like either kids on bicycles or adults in cars, then you've never seen them in action.

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It's just Markkk on his hobbyhorse. You should see the way he rides it in traffic.

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Really, I never know if some of the comments people put here are serious or just trolling for flame wars.

So in other words, we can think of bicycles as the "gateway vehicle", abuse of which invariably leads our youth down the path to abusing "hard vehicles" like scooters later in life.

Heck, just consider our own Swirly, who no doubt sneaks out to late night meetups for drag racing all over Dorchester, to get a fix. If only we could have intervened sooner. Perhaps we need to fund a "war on bikes", to force everyone into Buicks and Hummers instead?

Having said this, I agree with the poster that traffic rule disobedience is pretty much out of control in this state, from pedestrians to bicyclists to these motorized scooter people to the full fledged auto-bound m@$$h0le$.

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FWIW, I got buzzed by a pair of ATVs Saturday night on Belvidere by the Copley Sheraton. Previously, I've only seen these groups within about 10 blocks of Franklin Park. Am I mad? NO! If they start pulling this crap in the Back Bay, maybe the cops will be forced to do something about it.

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Solution:

Carve out a couple of acres on the FP Golf Course, (an extremely underutilized public property.)

Install a nonprofit or city led engine repair shop, and bike storage facility.

Let kids learn and ride.

Be progressive.

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I have to agree with you. Consider how many golf courses there are in the metro Boston area compared to places to ride ATVs and dirt bikes and its clear that ones less golf course would not be a problem.

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