The recovered six stolen scooters this week—three of which were found within four hours Wednesday morning.
“It’s definitely a surge,” Detective Amy Miguez, spokeswoman for the city police department told the Capital Gazette.
Since April, police have recovered nine scooters that were stolen from around Annapolis.
“It’s a combination of the weather warming up and people having them (scooters) out so they can use them, (and) whenever gas prices are high they tend to affect easy, cheap ways, to get around,” Miguez told the Capital.
She said she thinks the thefts are motivated more by a need for transportation than a desire to profit from the sale of a stolen scooter.
“It seems like they do it to get to point A to point B,” Miguez said. “We tend to find it’s younger offenders taking them—people who don’t have another way to get around. Why take a bike when you can take a scooter?”
Several of the stolen scooters have been found by police in a few hours—even before their owners reported them missing.
The issue is that scooters are easily stolen. Miguez said that thieves don't need a key for a scooter in order to walk off with it.
Miguez recommended to the Capital that scooter owners store their rides in a garage or shed if possible. Owners could also install an alarm but at the very least, Miguez said, they should lock the ignition and remove the key.
