Family says ‘brazen’ thief hit Bradenton home twice in one night

A man who allegedly snatched a chainsaw and a bicycle right off the front porch of a Bradenton family’s home in two separate thefts in the span of a half hour was certainly brazen, but he may not have realized he was caught on video.

The suspect was filmed on the home’s security cameras as he first calmly walked up onto the front porch in the 300 block of 30th Avenue East, Bradenton, snatched a brown Dewalt chainsaw, and was whisked away in a light-colored getaway car at 11:57 p.m. Saturday, according to residents Amanda Geiser and her boyfriend, Dustin Hartman, who immediately called the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office after the first theft.

The suspect then came back for the bike six minutes after deputies had left, Geiser said.

Never thinking they would be burglarized again so quickly, Geiser and Hartman were inside their house adjusting the video so they could monitor it from their bedroom when the second theft occurred, they said.

The stolen trick bike is baby blue Eastern Trail Digger 2 BMX valued at about $600, Geiser said.

“I feel like he was watching my house,” Geiser said. “He left six or seven minutes after the deputies left. That’s pretty brazen. This guy needs to be caught.”

The Herald found out about the case from a Facebook video.

According to Geiser, the suspect is a male in his 30s, about 5-foot-8, wearing a white T-shirt, U.S. Army shorts, black shoes and a baseball cap.

“My son, who is 9, eye-witnessed the first theft,” Geiser said. “He was watching TV when the man came on the porch. He ran to get us but by the time we got to the porch we could hear tires peeling out and they were gone.”

“When they stopped the first time, the getaway car almost got rear-ended,” Geiser added. “The car beyond them had to swerve. We saw all that on the video.”

The BMX theft was crushing for Hartman because he said his late father, Richard Hartman, gave the bike to him before he died.

Geiser said she mounted two video cameras on her front porch because there have been some vehicle break-ins in her neighborhood.

This story was originally published May 28, 2017 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Family says ‘brazen’ thief hit Bradenton home twice in one night."