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Video Shows South Loop Thief Hopping Fence To Swipe $300 Bike

By David Matthews | September 22, 2017 2:12pm | Updated on September 25, 2017 8:50am

SOUTH LOOP — A couple who moved to Chicago just three weeks ago got a not-so warm welcome Wednesday from a fence-hopping thief who stole the husband's bike.

Rika Sumida captured surveillance footage of the theft at 3 a.m. Wednesday at her home near 15th and State streets. In the video, a man wearing a baseball cap and a backpack climbed over the fence, which is about 6 feet high, and grabbed the unlocked bike. The video ends before the bike is removed from the patio.

Sumida said the bike, valued around $300, was a gift to her husband. The couple moved to the South Loop from Downstate Peoria earlier this month.

"I was so shocked," she said. "This never [happened] in Peoria. It was so safe."

The caper came after a rash of bike thefts earlier this summer in the South Loop that ultimately led to an arrest. Kate Monson Herron, Sumida's neighbor, said would-be thieves try car door handles on the street every night to see if cars are unlocked.

Sumida said she got the bike for her husband in the hope he could ride it near the lake and otherwise enjoy all that their new city has to offer. Instead, they made a trip to the police station to report the bike's theft.

A spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department did not have an immediate comment about the theft.