America's city troubled by bicycle thieves: people are getting GPS installed

A US city with a population of 45,000 near the Canadian border is troubled by bicycle thieves. For the last few months, incidents of bicycle theft are a daily thing here. Bicycles are being stolen from homes, garages, and markets wherever they are. Many cycles have been stolen up to 6-6 times. The University of Vermont has asked its students to beware of bicycle theft.
Since June, 220 cycles of university students have been stolen, which cost around Rs 2.5 crore. To catch the thief, the people of the city have installed GPS trackers in their cycles and CCTV cameras in their homes.
The incidents of bicycle theft are so high that even the policemen are fed up. They are getting their transfer done in other departments. Some even quit their jobs. Policemen from other departments are not ready to come here. When the police could not disclose the incidents of bicycle theft, the people of the city formed Facebook groups to catch the thieves and recover the bicycles at their own level.
4% of the city's population is connected to this Facebook group. Julie Williams, the city's former mayor, runs the Betty Bicycle Company. She says that she gets 5-6 calls every day about cycle theft. She herself has joined the social media group.
Police say that there was not a single shooting incident in this city in 30 years, but after frequent incidents of bicycle theft, crime has increased in the city since people started policing themselves.
In these few months, there have been 25 incidents of firing in which 4 lives have been lost. Bicycles are ridden a lot in Burlington. Most households have more than one bicycle. Cycle stores are also above average in the city. Due to people being aware and helping each other, many stolen cycles are found many times. Many times she was found lying in the nearby forest and sometimes standing unclaimed in a market.
Some people believe that bicycles are being stolen from people's homes, garages or stands to disguise themselves in the city's illegal drug market. Many cycles have also been recovered from there. However, the real reason for the sudden incidents of bicycle theft in the last few months could not be ascertained.