Imagine spending hundreds of dollars on something you thought would make your life easier. For me, that was a scooter. You make this great purchase, then you’re told to pay another hundred dollars for the U-Lock. For the time being, I decided to stick with a coil scooter lock instead. 

My scooter didn’t last a month on campus.

Let’s go back to Fall 2024. I hadn’t actually planned on getting a scooter. They’re expensive, they’re heavy and you can’t take them into buildings on campus. Plus, I had heard rumors about scooter theft on campus. 

However, once I got my class schedule for the semester, I had to figure out how to get from a class in the Student Rec Center to a class in the North Gym within 15 minutes. 

So, I used some of my hard-earned student employee pay and bought a scooter. I loved it. Honestly, it was a game changer for me and my busy schedule on campus. I wondered how I ever made it back and forth around campus all day without it. I became a big fan of riding scooters.

When I bought my scooter at the beginning of the fall semester, all of the U-Locks were sold out in the stores. I bought a nice cable lock and promised myself I would order a U-Lock online as soon as possible. Classes began and I was immediately buried in work. I rationalized my lock-purchasing procrastination by confirming that lots of scooters on campus were secured with cable locks.

This was a big mistake.

It was a Thursday, my longest day on campus. I arrived by 8 a.m. and my last class ended at 6 p.m. By 4 p.m., I hopped on my scooter and headed to my last class of the day. I locked my scooter at the bike racks outside the Peters Business Building and headed into class. 

An hour later I got out of class, exhausted and ready to head home. On Sept. 18, students received the Bulldog Alert email about an increase in electric scooter thefts on campus, along with preventative measures they recommended students take to stop it from happening to them. I had just seen the email and was reading it on the way to the bike rack area, where I found it completely empty.

It took a minute for me to comprehend that my scooter had been stolen. I didn’t think it could happen to me. It felt awful. I was shocked, crushed and mad all at once. I mean, seriously? Some jerk stole my scooter, in broad daylight no less. There are words I wanted to say, but can’t type.

I called campus security and reported the theft. They took the report and basically told me I couldn’t do much about it. At the time, they said an average of at least six scooters are stolen every day on campus.

There has to be a way to address this crime problem on campus. I know campus security funding is an issue, but having an average of six or more scooters stolen every day on our campus is unacceptable.

In an interview with Detective Joseph Pulido from the Fresno State Police Department, I asked about a comment the officer who wrote my report made; how there was only so much they could do since most security cameras aren’t capturing these vulnerable areas. 

“Our cameras are on rotation so sometimes they capture things and sometimes they don’t, but I would love it if we could come up with the money to put a camera on each bike rack,” Pulido said. “[I] would love for that down the road, but that’s an expense.”

Here’s the advice campus police gave me for the future: Get a U-Lock for your scooter. Register your scooter with the Fresno State Police Department. Personalize your scooter with stickers or engrave it with something that makes it difficult to resell. Share this information with anyone who owns a scooter or a bike. Anything with wheels is a cash grab for thieves. 

Though they mentioned placing these vehicles into the “Bike Barns” on campus, these aren’t foolproof. When students swipe their Fresno State ID card to unlock the gate, all it takes is for one lurcher to follow behind a student. 

“How our officers do it is we do patrol checks in vehicles and they would get on foot to walk around the campus,” Pulido said. “There would be officers in uniform and sometimes it’s just us in plain clothes.”

Later that Thursday night, frustrated and defeated, I made a post to my personal Instagram story sharing with my followers what you’ve just read. I warned students and called out what little had been done to an issue that started out with bikes and is now happening with electric scooters.

To date, it was my most engaged story: 406 views, 47 accounts engaged and 15 replies. I received everything from sympathy to personal stories of friends who had similar experiences.

“Got mine stolen too, girl,” said Jeanette Quiñones, a junior at Fresno State. “Last week.”

“Sorry to hear about your scooter,” said Hovsep Manoukian, a senior at Fresno State. “My car was parked in P2 and half of the bumper came off. No note was placed. The worst part was that there were no security cameras in the parking lot to see who did it. I wish the university had cameras in essential parts of the campus and parking areas.” 

I never saw my scooter again, so now I just want to warn all of you. Since then, I’ve spoken to multiple campus resources to see what can be done to stop thousands of dollars in property from disappearing each day.

I attended the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) meeting on Sept. 25 to give a public comment on this issue and I was happy to find that most of the board approached me afterward asking the same question: What can be done?

Since that meeting, ASI has implemented a scooter safety program where students can apply to receive a free U-Lock. While expensive, the Kryptonite New York locks and their competitors,have proven to deter the most theft attempts. 

Luis Sepulveda, the outreach coordinator for ASI shared what the senate’s initial response to my public comment was.

“It was overall kind of shock,” Sepulveda said. “You can see it on the police report, on their yearly evaluation, the number has been rising as we see on campus that everyone’s using them [electric scooters]. It’s very alarming to see so many students be affected by the same thing.”

Their plan was this: create a program where the senators of Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs, Health and Wellness and Veteran and Transfer Affairs, would purchase U-Locks to provide for students who registered their scooter with the Police Department, completely free. This gesture has since been recognized by Traffic Operations. 

“We ended up buying a few just as a pilot program, and the police department actually let us know, through the senators, that they were in action to continue that process and make it a full fledged program, just in the upcoming months,” Sepulveda said. “So that’s where the program is currently.”

As we head into a new semester, with new scooters and bikes, I want to encourage everyone to take advantage of preventive measures to protect their property from local thieves. While Fresno State is working to bring the number of thefts down, don’t let this distract from the fact that despite knowing about the numerous scooter and bikes being stolen, they’ve yet to find a solution. 

After all, you can’t tell students not to bring scooters into buildings when we can’t guarantee our property will be where we left it.  

If you are a victim or witness to a crime on campus, please call the Fresno State Police Department at (559) 278-8400.