Originally Posted by
brockd15
Someone here, can't remember who, told a story recently about how they locked their bike up in the same place every day while at work. The people at one of the near-by buildings never saw him coming or going, they just saw the same bike in the same place everyday, so one of them ended up taking it after wrongly assuming that it had been abandoned (he ended up getting it back). I wouldn't want to "liberate" a bike without knowing the whole story or having the go-ahead from someone with the authority to give the go-ahead.
Have the same story, except:
* It was locked to a lamp post at a trade school I was attending.
* It was one of the kids in shop class who saw it there every day, and talked their instructor into loaning them a pair of bolt cutters so they could "liberate" it.
* When I reported it stolen, the word got back to the instructor, and he drove me personally to the kid's house to recover it.
So I agree, I would also not liberate a bike unless I was able to talk to the owner. The kid in this case got the "go-ahead from someone in authority to give the go-ahead"; but he was wrong, too.