When Ehsan Ghebrai’s bright orange 2004 Kawasaki Ninja was stolen last week from the underground parking of his downtown condominium, the 28-year-old defence lawyer called Toronto police.

“It was my baby,” he says of the motorcycle he bought last June for $7,000. When he arrived home at 5:15 p.m. Dec. 9, Ghebrai drove down to the fourth level and parked his car beside the bike. Three hours later, when he went to go out again, the bike was gone.

He called 52 Division on Dundas St. W., near University Ave. A police officer, Ghebrai said, told him they didn’t have the resources to send an investigator but that he should ask for surveillance footage.

The officer also suggested he talk to the bike’s last owner — maybe he knew something — and take a walk around the neighbourhood to see if the thief dumped it nearby. “I thought that’s useless, who’s going to go to the trouble of stealing a bike from a fourth-level underground just to ditch it?”

Building security officers, meanwhile, told Ghebrai they only release security camera footage to police. He provided them with an occurrence number given to him by the 52 Division officer and that is the last he heard.

Ghebrai says he has spent weeks litigating cases involving modest amounts of drugs — as little as 0.7 grams of crack recently — that have involved seven or eight officers, “and they can’t send a single police officer to seize the videotape of a limited period of time?”

Insp. Howie Page of 52 Division was surprised to hear about what Ghebrai told the Star.

“We do not want citizens to do their own investigations,” Page said Wednesday. “It is our job to do.”

While police try to dispatch officers to investigate the theft of big-ticket items, it isn’t always possible, but a detective should be assigned to the case, he said, adding he will look into it.

The force has a policy of sending an officer to every reported break-and-enter, Page said.

Ghebrai has notified his insurance company and hopes to be reimbursed in time for next year’s riding season, when he will be investing in a heavy-duty lock.