The mother of a 14-year-old boy whose bike was stolen last week wants the thieves to know the value of what they took.
On Sept. 2 around 5 p.m., Sam Birosh was biking around the Sapperton area and decided to stop in at the 7-Eleven on East Columbia and Braid streets. After about a minute of being inside the convenience store, Birosh came out to find his mountain bike gone.
“He was just frantic,” mom Kelly told the Record. “He ran around looking for it. He phoned me, and I told him to call the police, and he did, and they said they would look at the video camera.”
The Record contacted Const. Vince Stewart, the constable in charge of the file. He said because the surveillance camera is pointed at the shop’s front door, identifying a suspect would be hard if the bike was parked on the side of the store.
“I feel so bad for the young kid,” Stewart said. At press deadline, Stewart had yet to have a conversation with Birosh about where the bike was left.
Sam has always been good at locking it up, according to Kelly, who was surprised to learn he didn’t this time.
“He didn’t even want to put that bike downstairs in the locker; he wanted it in the house,” she said, adding her son “should have been born on a bike,” having loved being on two wheels since he was two years old.
“He asked me every day when he was little, ‘Can I ride my bike today?’” Kelly recalled.
Sam’s first bike broke about a year ago after a construction company working on her apartment building allegedly let some materials slip off the top floor, which hit the bike on their ground floor balcony. Determined to replace it, the teenager found another one on Craigslist for $500. He used his savings to buy it and also got a paper route to help with the cost of fixing it up.
“He worked on it all the time. He had his own tools and bought bits and pieces and parts. And as things broke down, he patched them up and fixed them,” Kelly said.
As a single mom on disability after she was diagnosed with a brain injury last year, Kelly said she simply can’t afford to replace her son’s bike. Even though she has home insurance that would cover the cost, the deductible is $1,000.
Speaking through tears, she said the theft is a huge loss for her family.
“I think I’m more devastated than him. He said, ‘Don’t cry mom, it’s not your fault.’ I just hope whoever did this, reads this and feels bad for having hurt somebody.”
