It seems the story is they were stealing abandoned bikes which means the stealing part  is in question. I guess it is sort of like driving down the street and noticing your neighbor is tossing our a perfectly good BBQ with the trash and you decide to do a little garbage picking. Of course in this case the goods were chained to a stationary object. The chains was removed by a borrowed/recycled hacksaw?

The defense was they were recycling not stealing.

Washington State defensive backs LeAndre Daniels and Tyree Toomer will not face criminal charges after their arrests last month.

That decision was announced Wednesday by Whitman County prosecutor Denis Tracy.

Toomer and Daniels were arrested June 9 after allegedly taking several bicycles from an area on campus. The bikes were abandoned at the end of the school year, so the prosecutor can't prove that a theft occurred