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Police Search For Beloved Bike Of Boy With Down Syndrome


SANTA ANA (CBS) — Police are seeking the public's help in locating a unique three-wheel bike belonging to a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome.

"I almost started to cry, because he loves that bike," Kyle's mother, Loretta Martinez, told the Orange County Register. "He hasn't asked for it yet and I'm afraid at how he is going to react when I tell him we don't have it anymore."

According to Martinez, she awoke Thursday to find that that someone had taken the three-wheel cruiser out of the back of her husband's pickup while it was parked overnight at their home on Garnsey Street, the newspaper report.

The bike, which is valued at more than $300, had been placed in the truck after one of Kyle's regular rides with his father around Mile Square Park Regional Park in Fountain Valley.

With her husband unemployed since October, Martinez told the newspaper that the family cannot afford to buy another bike. And they worry that Kyle, who is an active assisted swimmer with the Special Olympics, will be devastated when he realizes his bike is gone.

"He has used the bike so much that we've had to replace the tires twice, and we've only had it for a year and a half," Martinez told the newspaper. "We're hoping we can get it back."

Anyone who has any information about the bike's whereabouts is asked to call Santa Ana police at (714) 245-8400.

(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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