A man was shot in the leg with a pellet gun while biking to work on SE 36th in Bellevue last week, King 5 reports. There was no altercation leading up to the incident, and he did not even realize he had been shot until he was at the hospital.
From King 5:
In other area bike-related crime news, UW police busted a bike thief cutting the cable lock of a bike on campus September 21. Weeks earlier, UW police spotted someone walking with two bikes near 15th Ave NE and Pacific and stopped him. From Jonah at Publicola:
Officers asked the man why he had two bikes—UW’s campus is a particularly hot spot for bike theft—and the man told officers he was taking his and his girlfriend’s bike to his car to lock it up.
Officers photographed the man and the two bikes and let him go.
Later that day, two people contacted UW police and reported someone had stolen their bikes, which were similar to the bikes the suspect was seen with earlier that day.
A few weeks later, on September 21, officers again spotted the suspect—along with another man—cutting a security cable on a bike chained to a bike rack.
When officers approached the men, they took off, but UW police were able to catch one of the men. Officers booked the 23-year-old man into the King County Jail for obstruction.
All UW students (and the rest of you) reading this post right now: GO BUY A U-LOCK. A cable lock alone is not enough. Though it may seem secure, even nice cable locks can be pretty easy to cut.
Comments
6 responses to “Person shot with pellet gun while biking in Bellevue + Bike thief arrested at UW”
A pellet gun? That makes my drive-by paintball incident look tame! I hope he doesn’t wind up with problems down the road from having a pellet in his leg.
I hope Mr. Weigel recovers quickly and gets back in the saddle. Hate destroys so many things, I really do hope he can find a way to work through all the emotions and continue doing what he loves. What a terrible incident.
Someone once tossed a chestnut (complete with its spiky shell) at me as I was biking along Eastlake :( Pretty painful, but nothing like getting shot, I imagine…
Wow! What a mean thing to do.
I got shot in the helmet by a bb gun on 15th Ave on Beacon Hill a few years ago. I thought a branch had fallen from a tree and hit me or something and was pretty shocked to see a bb fall out of a hole in my helmet when I took it off.
Scar-ry!
Cowards. This aggression will not stand, man. This aggression against cyclists will not stand, man. In all seriousness things have reached a level of foolishness I never expected in Seattle.
So much for the supposed “War on Cars”.
Iunno… I tend to think this sort of thing is pretty far outside of politics. People on bikes are pretty easy targets for teenage sociopaths (well, really, they come in all ages, but teenagers are some of the worst). Have been for years, across the US at least. There’s no coherent target to be angry at or anything like that.