Stolen bike

This past Friday I picked Thomas up from work around 11pm.  He had ridden my bike to work so he strapped it on our bike rack for the ride home.  We were both super tired and didn't realize that we hadn't taken it off that night.  Monday, Thomas working on his bike and I asked where mine was.  It wasn't in the garage, on the car, or in the apartment.  When I went to look at the bike rack I noticed that the straps were cut.  The straps didn't even need to be cut obviously to take the bike off you just unstrap it.  But we realized somebody had stolen my bike.  All day Tuesday I couldn't stop thinking about the bike and I was so mad that somebody had taken it.

After I dropped Thomas off at work that afternoon I decided to get my exercise by going for a walking and looking for the bike.  I first went around our little complex and then went to the street behind ours.  There are some new nice townhouses and then this small section of about 6 trailer homes.  As I'm walking past one of them I notice a guy out in his back yard with a bunch of bike parts.  And I see leaning behind a shed what looks like the frame to my bike!!

 I walked past once and then a second time and kind of hid behind the trailer to make sure it was mine.  I had also brought a picture with me to confirm.  I could definetly tell the bike was mine.  So I go down the street further and call the police.  The lady who answered asked me what I was wearing and if I would be waiting outside.  I gave her the address of a townhouse across the street from the trailer.  She said she couldn't give me a time when an officer would be by so I just got on the phone with my mom and waited.  I waited for an hour and watched these four 19 or 20 year olds come and go on their bikes from this trailer.  Finally I called the dispatcher back and asked if she would just have the officer call me when he got there or stop by my apartment.  She said that would be fine.
So I waited, and waited, and waited! My first call to the dispatcher was at 4pm and by 7pm I called our neighbor who is also my visiting teaching companion.  She has called dispatch before too and said that they take their sweet time if it isn't considered an emergency and there is no weapon.  This made me so mad! By the time somebody showed up I was sure my bike would be gone.  So that night my neighbor, her husband, Thomas and I all went over there.  As our neighbor Samuel was shining a flashlight in the backyard to look at my bike this car pulls up with teens and the driver asks what we are looking for.  Samuel explains that our bike was stolen and we see it in the yard. He asked if the driver lived there and he said no but his friend did and to just knock on the door. We knocked on the door and a guy in his 50's answers.  I tell him my bike was stolen and we see it in the yard.  He explains that he wouldn't doubt it and gets his teenage daughter to come out and get it for us.

Apparently her boyfriend/fiancee stole it.  The guy goes back with his daughter and the guys to get the bike and sees all these other bike parts and gets really mad and says he is going to make the guy who stole them take them all back to their owners (I know that won't happen).  The girl gets on her phone with her boyfriend and says "You know that bike you stole? The people you stole it from are here at my house right now! You better not go to jail for this!" So they give us our frame and one tire back and the dad gives me his number and his daughter gives me hers so when the rest of the parts are found they can get them to us and the boyfriend can put the bike back together. I let them know that if that didn't happen we would need to get the police involved. Which they really didn't need to be worried about since apparently the police don't care about that kind of stuff and never even came or called me back.
About five minutes later the dad calls me to let me know they found more of the bike parts.  Thomas and I had to go out of town the next day but our neighbors offered to call the guy and have him put the bike back together the next day.
They let us know that it all got put back together and the guy apologized and said that he has a drinking problem (and apparently a theft problem) and he was really sorry he stole our bike.
I am actually kind of glad that the police didn't show up because if they did the kid just would have been taken to jail and we never would have gotten our bike back.  This way he had to fix what he had done.  But now I am so disappointed in our justice system.  It makes me angry that in order to get help as a citizen there has to be some weapon or someone has to be dying basically. So an 8 month pregnant lady has to go out there and be detective and get justice.

32 weeks