Surveillance Video Shows Alleged Thief Changing Clothes Multiple Times During Bicycle Theft

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Bike thefts are anything but rare in the city, but one homeowner maintained Monday he’d never seen anything quite like the lengths one alleged bicycle thief went to recently in order to evade detection.

“It just blew me away,” said the homeowner, Eric Phillips, after watching surveillance video captured by the cameras stationed outside his house. “I hope it’s not going to be routine.”

The video, dated Aug. 29, shows the unknown man first ride past the front of Phillips’ house on another bicycle.

“He comes back walking — walks into the garage, he’s in there for a minute, takes off with my bike, and I thought, ‘ugh, he’s gone,’” Phillips explained. “I come home and I’m like, ‘where’s his other bike’ because he left and came back in a few seconds.”

Phillips discovered the other bike was locked up in a four-plex nearby, and none of the neighbors claimed it as theirs.

Surveillance video captured from an alleyway behind Phillips’ house provided more answers to the other steps the alleged thief took.

“The guy actually takes my bike, goes into the alleyway, stashes it by my neighbor’s house, and then proceeds to change his clothes to disguise himself,” Phillips said.

The video then shows the man ducking in and out of the alleyway multiple times, even changing clothes again to avoid detection before riding off with Phillips’ bicycle.

“It was like three changes he’s done in the process of stealing my bike,” Phillips said.

Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Brandon Shearer said it was the first time he had heard of such a tactic used by a bike thief.

Phillips said he found additional images of the unknown man with his bicycle on the Next Door app, which led to some promising potential leads for officers.

Police told Phillips via phone Monday afternoon that there were no updates to his case.

Phillips said he was grateful he installed the cameras at his house.

“I’m hoping that more of my neighbors decide to put a camera up in the alleyway and that they’re going to get recorded in an alleyway more than anywhere else,” he said.

He remained in disbelief over what happened.

“It just kind of blew me away how much this guy went through not to get caught,” Phillips said.