Bend burglars take bikes from two Hutch’s stores

Monday night, Hutch’s Bicycles in Bend had a total of three bikes taken from their Eastside and Westside. Two of those bikes were recovered and a suspect arrested, police said Tuesday.

The burglaries occurred at two times. One was actually during store hours, the other caught on camera 2 1/2 hours after they closed.

And police swarming the Westside area after that theft prompted many residents to wonder what was going on, lock their doors and to call Deschutes County dispatchers.

“They smashed the lower part of the window, and glass was everywhere, so we took two sheets of plywood and sandwiched it in between to maintain the broken glass and try to armor it,” said Kerry Greene, Hutch’s Bicycle store manager.

Hutch’s had security video of the male suspect who threw a rock to break into their Eastside Bend location. The suspect then took the nearest bicycle he could find and later walked out of the store.

Greene said this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

“Since I’ve worked for Hutch’s, in the five years I’ve worked for them, it’s been six or seven times,” he said.

It happened at both stores, once right in front of the store that looks out onto Third Street, but the suspect wasn’t a complete stranger.

“I’d actually work on his bikes when I used to work down here about four years ago, so interesting, small town kind of a thing.”

So now Hutch’s plans to bolster their doors and windows to make it more difficult for thieves to get away with their bikes, but not in a way that will take away the shop’s identity.

“I mean, I don’t really think the owner wants to put, Jim (Lewis, the owner) doesn’t want to put bars on the windows,” Greene said. “That’s just not a good feel for a retail place.”

Greene thinks they’ll be able to recover the stolen merchandise, but also has a message for any other potential perpetrators.

“Watch out stealing anything from Hutch’s because Jim Lewis. the owner, has been really good at catching everybody,” Greene said. “He’s even caught a couple people himself.”

Police said Tuesday evening that a suspect was arrested, who also broke into another business on the Eastside that they are investigating. He also was charged with unlawful entry into cars and homes. More details are expected to be released soon.