A small group of bicyclists are challenging MSU Department of Police and Public Safety's bicycle confiscation practices.

During their time spent at MSU, anthropology senior Angela Jancius, her significant other, Daniel Sturm, and genetics senior Paolo Struffi have endured a total of six instances of bike theft and cut locks, which they say came as a result of how MSU police handle unattended bicycles on campus.

The three University Village residents sent two letters expressing their concern to MSU police. In a letter MSU Police Chief Jim Dunlap sent to the three, he wrote "there is no way to substantiate a claim," and "we believe that the ordinances are correctly interpreted." Dunlap couldn't be reached for comment.

But there is still plenty of anger and a feeling of injustice directed toward those who collect the bicycles. Last year, more than 1,300 bicycles were impounded during the summer.

On June 2, Struffi left for a three-week holiday in Italy, leaving his Huffy mountain bike chained to a bicycle rack outside his apartment. Registered, in good working condition, and properly affixed to a rack, the bike was gone when he returned June 27.

Struffi said he was careful to leave his bike properly parked. He had just had it impounded a month prior at the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building for not placing it in a bike rack, despite a university ordinance that allows students to park their bikes against the building if no racks are available. Struffi said the 26 racks were filled to capacity.

When Struffi went to MSU police, he was told the bike had been impounded because it had been left unlocked. When he asked for them to return the lock, it was found to have been cut by an MSU police employee. Struffi was allowed to remove his bike from impoundment without having to pay the $8 impoundment fee because MSU police removed the lock.

"I don't have time to spend on these things," Struffi said. "But if you have a problem and don't do anything, you're not going to solve it."

Deputy Chief Mike Rice would not speak specifically about the students' complaints, but he said mistakes are made in the process of collecting bikes.

"We get complaints ever year about the issue of impoundment," Rice said. "We've made mistakes and impounded bikes that shouldn't have been impounded."

Jancius and Sturm have sustained losses similar to Stuffi's. The couple received a warning to move their bikes from the front of their University Village apartment's window, even though University Apartments residential guidelines permit them to park in front of their window. The couple moved their bikes to a rack.

The couple already had lost two bikes in May after failing to register the bikes they had purchased three days earlier from an MSU Surplus Store bike sale.

But in the afternoon of June 10, they found the bikes missing. MSU police claimed the bikes, which had been registered and were in good repair, had been left unlocked. Picking the bikes out of the MSU impound lot, the chain lock the couple used was found dangling from the handle bars of Sturm's bike. Again, the $8 impoundment fee was waived.

"It's as if it were a crack down on heroin but on bikes," Jancius said. "They just impound everything they see."

Rice says MSU police don't generate profit on the impoundment of bikes, and it is a burden for the department. But the department does receive money raised during bike auctions for its day-to-day expenses. In 2001, between 500 and 700 bikes were auctioned at the MSU Surplus Store.

"Bike removal and disposal is not something that we look foreword to doing," Rice said. "It's something that has to be done for the community."

Both Jancius and Stuffi said their bikes were rendered practically unusable after they retrieved them from MSU police. They said it had to do with the manner in which the bikes were treated after being seized.

Jancius said her bike's frame had been bent and Stuffi's said his brakes no longer functioned.

Through the whole mess, the three have lost more than $100 since their problems with impoundment first began.

Rice said bikes are removed from racks with bolt cutters and placed on the back of a truck with no specific compartments or racks to store the bikes during transportation.

And while police actions are subject to review by the MSU Police and Public Safety Oversite Committee, bicycle impoundment is conducted by student employees and is not subject to review by the Oversite Committee that presides over MSU police issues and functions.

Jancius says she thinks it's this lack of supervision that caused her bike to be impounded.

"With so many rules and such broad interpretations they got something to cover their back," she said. "No one is apologizing of compensating. They won't investigated. We are considering a legal suit."

Jancius and Sturm have made other people on campus aware of their problems with MSU police.

In a monthly meeting held June 12 at the Spartan Village Community Center, the couple met with about six other people who voiced their complaints about impoundment.

Christina Riddle, who is regional director for the League of Michigan Bicyclists, was present at the meeting and said she was worried about the way MSU allegedly treated its bicyclists.

"We want to make the community more healthy, but you can't do that if it's going to cause you all of your disposable income," Riddle said.

Riddle, an MSU alumna who will have two children attending the university next year, said impoundment is a problem that can fixed between MSU police and students.

"I have confidence in the skill on that campus," she said. "Once the parties get together, they'll be fine."

Terry Link, director of the Office of Campus Sustainability, is initiating a program that gives free bikes to faculty members to decrease motorized transportation usage on campus.

Some of the bikes in the program come from the impound lot.

"I would feel much better knowing that were not taking someone's bike," Link said.

Link said he will be sending out a letter of inquiry to the MSU police asking for answers to impoundment problems the three university students faced.

Sturm said he felt part of the problem rested in the fact many students know so little about the bike policies.

"My first exposure to MSU last year when I came here from Germany was buying a bike," He said. "My bike was impounded three days after I bought it.

"I didn't know how things worked here. No matter what, they have hundreds of possible excuses to impound your bike."

Joseph Montes can be reached at montsjo@msu.edu.