Surveillance Cameras Catch Man Stealing Pricey Bike From Midwood Backyard
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A man who stole a fancy, expensive bike definitely picked the wrong place to do it, and wound up caught on camera in a big way.
As CBS2's Scott Rapoport reported, the video came to CBS2 from a viewer on our Facebook page.
"I was angry. I was sad. It was upsetting," Audrey Azra said.
Surveillance video captured the brazen theft of the $1,000 trail five, Cannondale bike. It was taken right out of the backyard of Azra's Midwood home.
"It's totally wrong. It's just wrong to steal someone else's things," Azra said.
It happened last Friday. Audrey said she can't believe the determination and chutzpah of the bike bandit.
Surveillance video captured the thief's every move. He came through an alley two houses away, hopped a fence, walked through a neighbor's yard, and came to a gate, looked around to see if anyone was watching, opened the gate to Azra's backyard, swiped the bike, and bolted away down the driveway.
It all happened in broad daylight at 2:30 in the afternoon.
"I was home, so were all my kids. We could have come out and seen him," Azra said.
Azra said the bike belonged to a friend of her sons who was in the house visiting at the time, and that it was a bar mitzvah present.
What the thief obviously didn't know what that the house was equipped with no fewer than eight surveillance cameras.
"He picked the wrong house, and he picked the wrong person to deal with," she said.
She said she gave CBS2 the tape for one reason.
"I want to get the guy caught," she said.
Azra said police told her there were two other reports of bike thefts in her neighborhood over the weekend. The NYPD said they did not receive any other reports for stolen bikes in the precinct.
