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Bike of Atlanta man with autism stolen
He was about to hope on his bike to head home Sunday night after a long day on the job, but Naim Anwar Wares found it was missing.
ATLANTA - Crooks steal the bike of a young man living with autism. It happened near DeKalb Avenue and Krog Street in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta.
The bike was Naim Anwar Wares’s only was to work. His family is scrambling to find a bike.
Anwar Wares secured his bike at rack near the restaurant where he works. But when left work to go home Sunday night hours later the bike was gone. Someone broke the lock and stole it.
"I had gotten off work around 11," Anwar Wares said. "And I just didn’t see it."
He wondered where it could be. "At first I thought I had forgotten to lock it up, and it was gone," Anwar Wares said. He looked around. Then he saw something that made his heart sink. "By the time I called my family to let them know what was going on, I saw the lock on the ground," Anwar Wares said.
Someone broke the lock and took his Trek bike. "He walked around a little bit and found the lock on the ground, sawed in half," said Tajhiek Anwar Baoll, Anwar Wares’s mother.
The bike was Anwar Wares’s sole way to get to work. "It is my main source of transportation. I go pretty much everywhere with it," Anwar Wares said.
"I was very, very heartbroken that this happen to him," Baoll said. "Got him a brand-new bike in June for his birthday when he turned 20."
The crooks didn’t just steal a bike. They stole Anwar Wares’s sense of independence. "He’s on the autism spectrum," Baoll said.
Wares follows a structured routine. That routine is now disrupted. "He’s a little confused about when to leave for work. He’s confused about his schedule what is going to work for him." Baoll said.
Anwar Wares says he no longer feels safe at night. "When I leave work it’ll probably be less safe since it’s completely dark. If I have to walk, it can be very worrying now," he said.
Anwar Wares says he’d ask these questions of the person or people who stole his bike. "I just ask them why? Were they in such a need that they need to steal with my things?"
Atlanta police are investigating. Anwar Wares’s bike is still missing. He still has to walk to work.