Package stolen off Roscoe Village porch
ABC7 I-Team Investigation
CHICAGO (WLS) -- A young woman or teen was caught on surveillance video stealing a package from a home in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood.
"She knew what she was doing. She had an open shopping bag ready in her hand and the bag was already open. She walked up on to the porch grabbed the package and put it right in there," Mike Boush, resident, said.
That package had a pair of pants, Boush said. Another package that was supposed to arrive weeks earlier also went missing, but his video surveillance doesn't go back that far.
"We were stunned. We were completely stunned. We were speechless for 30 minutes. Stunned that somebody stole something from our front porch," Boush said.
He posted the video and the warning on nextdoor.com, one of a handful of new community social networks that can be used as a message board or virtual block watch by neighbors. After the blast, others chimed in saying they think they've had packages stolen from their buildings this week as well. Boush did not file a police report.
"My family said, 'That's very nice, Dad, but this person could be doing it over and over again,'" he said.
Thursday marks the busiest day of the year for the U.S. Postal Service. UPS projected that 34 million packages were delivered on Monday, the peak of their holiday deliveries. Fed Ex expected 22.6 million packages and the USPS estimates about 640 million cards, letters and boxes. Tens of millions of gifts will be delivered this holiday season, many of which will come next week.
Boush's neighbors are now helping him watch for deliveries.
"The one good thing that came out of this was we go to trust my neighbors a little but more," he said
Another tip: when ordering online directly from a store, ask if the item can be shipped to that store's location and you can pick it up there. You can also ship packages to your office or a nearby business.
In Edgewater, True Nature Foods is part of the UPS Access Point network. Packages can be shipped here and picked up later with ID. It's good for the neighborhood and the store.
"People who don't that we're here, they see that their package is here, so they come to us to pick it up, and look around while they're here," said Sasha Spallina, True Nature Foods.
Chicago police said they have made three recent arrests on the North Side for package thefts, but that overall theft reports are actually down by 3 percent.
Tips to keep your packages safe:
-Have them delivered to a courier's local pickup station instead of your home
-Have them sent to your office
-Track packages with email and text alerts so you know when to be home
-Request signatures upon delivery
