Antique railing worth about $20K stolen outside City Hall
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Surveillance video shows a man the Philadelphia Police Department claims stole an antique railing from outside of City Hall. The brazen theft happened early in the morning last Thursday.
To hear it explained, you almost stop in your tracks: someone did what?
"Who comes up with that idea?" Cailyn Schmidt of Manayunk said. "What do you think they're going to do with it?"
That's probably your next thought as well.
According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the antique brass railing, which was cut and stolen, is worth between $15,000 and $20,000.
Mayor Jim Kenney says he's not surprised because he's seen thefts like this in the city before.
"I just heard that, I don't know. I think it's under investigation now," Kenney said. "People junk and scavenge. A guy took a whole railing off of the Union League one time, that whole right side of the railing he took off and walked right down the street with it."
In surveillance video released by Philadelphia police, the suspect wheels away the antique brass in a red shopping cart early Friday morning.
"This is a travesty," Sean Haynie of Center City said. "I love this railing. I walk by it every day. It's beautiful. It's an antique. It really sucks that somebody would come and take it in a shopping cart, nonetheless. Hate to see it."
It also makes you wonder what would lead someone to commit such an act.
"People are desperate," Schmidt said, "and it sucks what they have to come up with and they feel they need to do to survive. I think it's pretty sad, to be honest."
