I was having an excellent evening commute, happily minding my own business, when all of a sudden I'm hit by a bunch of coins that have been thrown out a passing car window. I was absolutely shocked, as you can imagine, and when they followed that by throwing a pizza box at me, I got kind of scared that more would come. But, I was also mad. How dare they do that to me, or to anyone?! I did nothing to deserve that. I wanted to report them. I needed to.

I guess my adrenaline was pumping at that point, because I never lost sight of the car. I'm not sure how far I went, maybe a mile, when they pulled into a driveway of a business. I got a little nervous that they were waiting for me to pass, so they could harass me some more. I slowed down, and they pulled out before I got to them. Then, they pulled into another business a little further up the road, this time a liquor store, and one of them got out of the car and went into the store. He was shirtless, and appeared to be intoxicated, so I dared not confront him (although I though about it for a split second). I decided to not draw any attention to myself, just ride by like nothing happened. I was able to see the license plate clearly at this point. I rode a little further up the road, stood on the sidewalk, and called 911.

As I'm talking to the operator, the car drives by me, and the driver looks right at me and smiles. It was creepy. There were 4 or 5 men, in their early 20s, in the car. I was pretty freaked at this point, really afraid they were going to hurt me or someone else, and they were driving kind of erratically. I told this to the police. I told them the make, model and color of the car. I told them the direction they were traveling, and the dispatcher told me she thought they were going to get them. I didn't believe her.

Well, I was wrong. By the time I got to my car, the police called me back and asked me if I could come to the station to give a report. I did, and while in the lobby, a man approached and asked if I was the cyclist who had the pizza box thrown at her. He then told me it was his pizza, stolen from his car, along with his credit card, Iphone, and other items. There was another woman leaving the lobby as I got there, whose car had also just been broken into, and her stuff was recovered in their car, too. Evidently, they had been breaking into cars all day, and now they were caught because they threw change and pizza at me.

I'll tell you, knowing these guys were caught made all the fear and anger I felt go away. I'm so happy the police took me seriously. I'm so glad I didn't just blow it off, because it's easier to do that. I'm so glad the people who had their stuff stolen will get it back. I hope these guys never throw anything at another cyclist because they're in prison. I have a new idea of who throws stuff at cyclists. Really bad guys.