Police handling of Dirt bikes in Baltimore

[2stroke]

The topic of illegal dirt bikes has been done before, but I saw a story the other night on the news where some officers were happy about seizing 8 dirt bikes from where they were being stored.

They mentioned a change in law that allowed them to go right in and grab them without a warrant or anything. "Since they are illegal anyway".

If I lived 2 miles east I would be in the city. DOes this mean I would be breaking the law by simply owning a dirt bike? Could they kick my shed in and take it?

Ok, the 8 they siezed probably were not in some poor slobs garage, they were probably in an abandoned building or something but still it makes me a little uneasy.

Also, and this is really what led me to post here tonight: THe officer in command was asked what became of the dirt bikes. He stated that the ones that were in poor condition were destroyed. The good ones are rounded up and put into crates and shipped to developing african nations for use by missionaries!

I nearly choked on my drink! I can just see some preacher ripping up the countryside in a dark robe on a KX250 with a bible under his arm! What the hell?
A noble purpose? I dont know but heres what bothers me about that:
THe officer never said a WORD about attmepting to locate the rightful owners of the bikes. Let's face it, most of the bikes these city kids are running are stolen. Do they figure if they were stolen from the city that it doesnt matter since they are illegal anyway? The border between Baltimore city and county zig zags all over the place, and Im sure that alot of "legitimately" owned county bikes get stolen and wind up in the city.

So they were urging the public to give anonymous tips regarding the location of dirt bikes in the city.

And if you live in the Baltimore metro area and got your bike stolen, Its probably over seas by now!

I really need to look up the laws, and see jsut what they say. I dont see how they could say it's flat out illegal to own a dirt bike.

 

[Jaybird]

DRN has an upstanding member who happens to be one of Baltimore's finest. I would love to hear what he has to say about this before I give my 2 pfennigs.

 

[Okiewan]

Uhh... it's supposed to be illegal to won one? Something is missing here.

 

[MXSparx]

Not illegal to own one.....just to have it within the city limits. You can own one but have to store it outside of the city.
Heroin capital of the east, but dont bring in any of them dirtcycle things :flame:

 

[extrememoto]

It is illegal to have your Bike Stored in your own garage in the City Limits??? Something is out of wack here??? Don't think the city has the power to outlaw owning a bike or having it in your garage... Is there more to the story? Maybe the Police are recovering the stolen bikes?

-dc

 

[jmics19067]

Are you supposed to drive around the city if you you are say heading from Philly to Budd's Creek?


dang that town is lame

 

[2stroke]

You have to store it outside the city?!?! Jeezus!
I imagine theres got to be some racers in the city limits.

Can you imagine, they have to rent a mini storage or something?

Yeah, actually my Father in Law is a high ranking member of the city police department. Next time I talk to him Ive got to ask him to clear it up for me. He has taken my oldest son on a tour of HQ before, and my son told me about the cage FULL of bikes. Sad really. Its like abused animals or something. I want to open a farm for abused and abandoned MX bikes!

 

[mx547]

in all seriousness and no offense intended but why would anyone live in a screwball place like that?

 

[Jaybird]

Heck, Jay...look at CA!

 

[mxer842]

i dont get their logic behind outlawing bikes, do they think were going to go mad max and terrorize the city on them? its in the city so you clearly cant ride them, so why not be able to store it in your own garage? does this mean there are no dealerships or parts stores in all of baltimore?

 

[JuliusPleaser]

The drug dealers must be using dirtbikes to escape from the police. If you think about it, a thug on a dirtbike could easily get away from a police car.

That's the only reason I can think of for outlawing them.

 

[BunduBasher]

this is the craziest thing I have ever heard !

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/2611436/detail.html

 

[James]

I can see confiscating one being illegally operated on the road or being used in illegal activities but to kick in garage doors and steal them from owners who have done no wrong is criminal. Any cop that enforces this law in such a manner should be crated up and shipped to China where they belong (along with the goons that passed it).

 

[mxer842]

"Considered loud and extremely dangerous, the Baltimore City Council outlawed dirt bikes because they were used for illegal purposes such as drug running. The bikes have also caused crashes and have been involved in deadly accidents, Simms reported. "....your right they cause accidents, no lets put this behind us and ride down main street in our giant friggin SUV's because those are much safer.

so they outlaw dirtbikes because they are loud and dangerous.you cant ride them in the city legally as it is!!!! outlaw dirtbikes and the drug running will stop right, no then the drug runners till some sportbikes and the cops are really f***ed.

 

[JuliusPleaser]

I can understand the City Council's stance. I don't agree with it, but if you watch the video, it's clear that the bikes aren't being taken from law-abiding citizens.

 

[dirtybkr]

Lets not take it out on the cops kids . It's thier job to enforce the laws no matter how utterly asinine the law is . They don't make them .

 

[James]

Originally posted by dirtybkr
Lets not take it out on the cops kids . It's thier job to enforce the laws no matter how utterly asinine the law is . They don't make them .

I don't need to refer to a bunch of historical references to people dumbly following orders...do I?

I have no proof that is it happening, but I still stand by my opinion that if a bike is confiscated and shipped to Africa for simply being stored in Baltimore, then the "authorities" involved are as much a crook as the drug dealer on the street. If officers can exercise their "discretion" when it comes to giving each other tickets, they can surely make a sound decision when it comes to harassing dirtbike owners.

I think New Jersey has a similar law where a car can be confiscated for not being registered and plated...even if it is stored in your personal garage. I don't understand how you can just outlaw personal property.

 

[Y2Z]

i think seizing ALL bikes is the wrong way to go about it. they should take the ones they know are being used for illegal purposes, how can they take peoples bikes that are being used on tracks or private property?

 

[JuliusPleaser]

You guys are missing the point. Baltimore had so many thugs, drugs dealers, etc. on dirtbikes that they decided to outlaw them. Jersey has a serious car theft problem, so that's probably the reason for their registration law. If you're a law-abiding citizen, you have nothing to worry about. I'd be happy to keep my bikes outside the city limits if it would help curb a drug/theft/thug epidemic.

http://www.ci.newark.nj.us/Public_Information/Press_Releases/Press_Releases_161.htm

 

[jruggery]

Originally posted by James


I don't need to refer to a bunch of historical references to people dumbly following orders...do I?

I have no proof that is it happening, but I still stand by my opinion that if a bike is confiscated and shipped to Africa for simply being stored in Baltimore, then the "authorities" involved are as much a crook as the drug dealer on the street. If officers can exercise their "discretion" when it comes to giving each other tickets, they can surely make a sound decision when it comes to harassing dirtbike owners.

I think New Jersey has a similar law where a car can be confiscated for not being registered and plated...even if it is stored in your personal garage. I don't understand how you can just outlaw personal property.

1. No one here, myself included, seems to know the exact provisions of the
law or ordinance in question. However, it's preposterous to suggest that
Baltimore P.D. now has the power to kick in doors and seize dirt bikes that
were LEGALLY purchased and possessed. The 4th amendment of the U.S. constitution gives protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no state or municipality has the authority to abridge that right. Also, seized property would not be released without, at the very least, checking the VIN to see if the bike was reported stolen and attempting to contact the owner(s).

2. Don't believe everything you see or read, especially from the media. Oftentimes what you are shown is coming from an entity more concerned with
ratings or selling papers than reporting objectively.

3. Whoever said above that the individual officers do not make the laws is absolutely correct. James, do you work? Do you get to ignore what your supervisor tells you to do? Neither do police officers. As far as officer discretion, that only applies to minor traffic infractions, not drug dealing and possession of a stolen motor vehicle, which are among the most serious grades of crime. And I think most of us that have been let off with a warning for speeding instead of given a ticket are glad that police officers are given that little bit of latitude.

 

[tristateridr]

Ok let me get this straight...
We have drug runners and gang bangers running the streets on "stolen" dirt bikes. And the mayor of this great city is more worried about shipping the dirt bikes to pluto, than shipping the thugs. Ya that is why I live outside of city linits in the country where I can start ny CRF450 at midnight if I choose. Mayne those people in Baltimore should look at how the city handles criminals and not the devices thay use to in the crime. Do they throw the guns in the river and let the killers go?

I feel sorry for thos who have to live in this city and enjoy our sport.


Back home agian in Indiana.

 

[mxer842]

the thugs on dirt bikes are running drugs so they clearly dont give a rats a$$ what the law says and will use the bikes anyways, this only affects the law abiding citizens of baltimore. secondly, if your bike is seized is it eventually given back, or do they just ship it off to Africa?

lastly, couldn't mfg's construe this law as restriction of trade, they outlawed a product in a major city that a few years ago was legal and could be costing the mfg's millions in lost revenue by not having a dealership in one of the biggest cities in America?

i dont know what the city council was thinking, "hey lets steal this bike from its rightful law abiding owner so that some thug doesn't steal it." and what about the DRZ-400's, many of those "dirt bikes" are also street legal?

 

[jmics19067]

I have no proof that is it happening, but I still stand by my opinion that if a bike is confiscated and shipped to Africa for simply being stored in Baltimore, then the "authorities" involved are as much a crook as the drug dealer on the street.

I have to agree with that statement as it sounds. The way this thread was presented was that storing a bike in Baltimore is illegal and that the Police officers are flippant and arrogant that they do not have to respect property and peoples rights. There was no indication at the beginning that these where legally confiscated from the " if you buy something for the purpose of manufacturing or distributin of illegal drugs or from the profit of illegal drugs you will lose it" law.

If you live in Baltimore and you own a dirt bike are you immediately classified as a drug dealer? I don't think any authority should have the power to make that distinction. If you are a drug dealer and you have a dirt bike I definately think the bike should be confiscated , vin numbers checked, and returned to its rightful owner or auctioned off for funds for the police if the bike was actually purchased.I think that the bike should be confiscated after the fact you have done something wrong, or in the investigation, whether just riding up and down the street or drug dealing.
Otherwise we get into the whole guilty until proven innocent thing.

This whole thing stinks of the "outlaw guns and the people kill people not guns" argument. Drug dealing, stealing cars, riding your dirt bike up and down the street, and murder are illegal. If these things are an epedemic, and the judicial system can't keep up with it, the government shouldn't be wasting money making new laws that the already overworked judicial system try to uphold. They should spend the money on more cops to prevent the problem and stiffer penalties to keep the convicted problems off the street.

what we have now is that the cops keep the bike and the drug dealers walk thru a revolving door judicial system. wouldnt it make much more sense for the cops to keep the drug dealer and let the bike go free? or better yet just shoot the Bass Turd

 

[truespode]

Originally posted by Julius Pleaser
You guys are missing the point. Baltimore had so many thugs, drugs dealers, etc. on dirtbikes that they decided to outlaw them.

A bad decision to fix a bad problem still leaves the problem unresolved and honest citizens rights trampled on whether or not the honest citizen is affected.

It is horrible to make a law to fix a problem when it takes away a lawful persons rights.

Ivan

 

[brandolph]

I'm not buying this and we've gotta be missing something important. Seems like the entire thread is all based on a very short, poorly written newspaper article and a bit of hear-say.
There's NO WAY that cops are tromping onto private property w/out warrants and confiscating legally owned bikes from reputable people. Talk about trampling constitutional rights.
Where do they draw the line? Two strokes, four strokes, street legal, motard...? How about vintage stuff?