So…my Friday night was a wee bit interesting as a Chicago cyclist. My
Friday plan was to check out Sonar, go to a friend’s apartment to
celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday in the West Loop and then finish off
the day at a party I was hosting at Bottom Lounge. Well, one more
event was added to the night – an altercation with a bike thief, which
led to his subsequent arrest and court date. I began the night with
Sonar, which took place at the Chicago Cultural Center for some
avant-garde like ambient music and practically put me to sleep. Then I
rode up to my buddy Paul’s place at about 8:30pm with Joshua and Naaman,
two other friends. All three of us locked our bikes up across the
street at the Staples on Jackson. I locked up my bike with two u-locks
(yes, I know I’m paranoid) and one cheapo squiggly lock. Naaman locked
his bike up with his own squiggly lock and Joshua used his own u-lock
and line and then we also intertwined lines and squigglys. We went
upstairs to the penthouse and had some libations on the deck and headed
out again around 10:00pm. We came out of the building and as we walked
across the street, I noticed there were only two bikes locked up,
instead of three. At that exact moment, a man tried to ride away on my
buddy Naaman’s bike. Naaman yelled out at the dude, “Hey that’s my
bike!”

We surrounded the dude on the bike and, not in the friendliest of ways, removed his body from the bike. He said, “You got
the bike, what do you want?!”

At that point I went into a Viking berserker rage and yelled shit at the guy like, “You bike thief
motherfucker! Fuck you! I’m putting your ass in jail!” He looked at
me like he wanted to fight but I stood my ground. He began walking west
on Jackson and walked out into traffic. I did the same. I don’t know
what came over me but if there is a group of people I can’t stand, it’s
fucking bike thieves. As we were walking in traffic, I called the
police and gave a description of the man as I walked ten feet behind
him. He was getting pissed off and tried to walk into Mr. Greek’s but
since I had already created a scene with all my yelling, the door people
refused him entry as soon as he tried to walk into the restaurant.
Then he sat down in front of the restaurant.

The whole time I screamed bloody murder about him going to jail and how all he is, is a
thief. One of the bike thief’s buddies happened to be right there and
yelled at him and tells him to ,“Run, run, you gotta get out of here!”
His buddy looked at me and said, “He just got out of jail!”

I responded, “He’s a thief, I don’t care!” So the thief decided to head
south on Halsted. I still followed him, causing a commotion in front of
all the Greek Town restaurants and bars in a freaking rage. The guy
turned left down an alley and made another quick left. I followed him
but as I turned the corner, the dude was ready to fight. I guess his
plan was to try and dispatch me in the alley away from the public’s eye
and stop me from following him. He was slow and older and kinda out of
shape, so I was able to easily avoid his attempted assault. I yelled,
“You can’t fucking catch me! You’re old, slow and fat!” We continued
to follow him north through the alley and he tried charging me again and
again as I nimbly avoid his assault.

Six minutes had passed by that point and no CPD. I called 911 again and said the guy had tried to
assault me twice since the first call and told them to hurry. The guy
walked to Jackson again and headed east while I trailed behind him.
Most of the time Joshua was about fifty feet away making sure things
didn’t get hairy while Naaman watched all of our bikes. As the guy went
east on Jackson, he decided to jump down the bridge onto the grass
right near the expressway. In a moment of pure stupidity, this crazy
asshole then ran across two lanes of traffic on 90/94 and dashed under
the viaducts, which was when I made a third call to the police. At that
point I didn’t want to continue to follow him because I feared crossing
the expressway. For Christ’s sake, his fat ass could have pushed my
153 pound body into 90/94 traffic and instead of Little Phil, I would
then be Dead Phil or Flat Phil. He ran around underneath the viaducts
while I stayed above and tried not to lose sight of him.

After about ten minutes, the Chicago Police finally fucking showed up with one
SUV and four squad cars. I pointed to the last place I had seen him
under the bridge and the police followed my direction. The asshole
didn’t move and was caught red-handed. They put him in the SUV and
drove up to the Jackson Bridge where we had gathered. Naaman, Josh and I
were waiting there, with our bikes basking in street justice
vigilantism. The cops asked me to identify the man they caught. The
CPD opened up the car door with the motherfucker inside. All I said to
him was, “Hey, buddy” and he couldn’t even look me in the eye. He knew
he was caught. Ha Ha Ha. After I signed some paperwork and got a court
date set, we were good to go. The dude was charged with stealing two
bikes because he cut my squiggly bike locks and was also on Naaman’s
bike. Since the total value of both bikes added up to over $2000, the
guy is going to jail – without passing go! I can’t wait until October
28, when I get to see this asshole in court – I’m going to wave my
broken bike locks at him when they sentence his ass.

Bike Gang 1. Bike Thief 0 – and going to pound-me-in-the-ass jail.