OGDEN DUNES | Ogden Dunes police and transit officers are seeking the public's help in finding a man who broke into a truck at the South Shore station there Tuesday along with four accomplices.

According to Robert Byrd, transit police chief for the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, an Ogden Dunes police officer on routine patrol at the Portage-Ogden Dunes station saw a car drive into the lot there at 7:44 p.m. Tuesday, get out of his car and smash a window on a pick up truck.

When the man saw the squad car approaching, he allegedly hid behind a parked car.

The man drove out of the lot and quickly came face to face with the officer who stopped his patrol car at the exit of the parking lot.

Byrd said the man asked the officer what time the next train was scheduled to arrive, claiming he was there to pick up his girlfriend. The officer told the man train schedules were available at the Town Hall and suggested he go there to pick one up.

The man went to Town Hall with the officer following him and was captured on a surveillance camera there. After picking up the train schedule, the man got into a white, older model, four-door Chevrolet Corsica occupied by four young, white men. The paint was flaking from the body of the vehicle and a temporary Indiana paper license plate was on the rear license plate bracket.

"I firmly believe that had the Ogden Dunes officer not been present, the five people in the suspect's vehicle could have had a field day breaking into, and possibly stealing, a number of vehicles," Byrd said.

Byrd asked anyone with information about these suspects contact the NICTD Transit Police at (219) 398-6000.