June 13--A well-dressed thief allegedly made off with a drum set worth up to $1,000 from the Old Town School of Folk Music's Lincoln Square facility in a daytime heist in which he used a school pushcart to make good his getaway.
The burglary happened June 6 and was caught on surveillance footage that captured the suspect as he managed a pushcart carrying the drums onto an elevator, through the school and out a door, according to the school.
The suspect had even been noticed hanging around the music school for about an hour last Saturday, said Eric Unger, the school's equipment manager.
The man was dressed in a "nice" suit, Unger said, and managed to steal a bass drum, a floor tom and two rack-mounted tom drums from the equipment room.
"He used the school's pushcart. He managed to track that down," Unger said. "Seemed to me he tried to act like he knew what he was doing so people wouldn't question him."
The equipment was worth between $500 and $1,000, Unger said.
According to an email sent to the staff, the man wandered around the basement, grabbed a cart that was in the stairwell, loaded it, took the elevator up, loaded his car and drove away, leaving the cart on the curb.
"As far as we know, we do not believe that anyone knows him or authorized him to borrow a drum kit," the email says. "He clearly felt very comfortable here and even spoke to a staff member about loading his gear for a gig."
In another email to staff, school education director Scott Lundius called the theft "a poignant reminder of the importance of keeping our program spaces locked at all times when unattended."
"You can help us avoid future thefts like this by locking the door whenever you leave a room," Lundius wrote.
Unger said school officials were in the process of filing a police report Saturday afternoon.
