Several items belonging to students were stolen from an NIU bus.

The incident occurred after a group of students from the art department were taken to Navy Pier on Saturday Nov. 1.

Transportation services manager Bill Finucane said because it was a busy weekend, they had to “double up” or pick up two different groups of students at different times on the same bus.

According to Finucane, the bus traveled back to NIU after dropping off the art students, to pick up a group of Chicago Public School students that were brought to DeKalb through the CHANCE program. The bus then returned to pick up the art students.

“That’s when they made the discovery that some of their items were taken,” said Lt. Darren Mitchell.

University Police are investigating into who stole the items. Mitchell did not say what was taken, only that the price value of the items stolen amounted to over $300. Because it is an ongoing investigation, Mitchell said he could not elaborate on certain aspects of the case.

“We still have people we need to talk to,” Mitchell said.

In regards to the art students, both Mitchell and Finucane said the students were told they could leave their items on the bus. Finucane added the art students knew the bus was going to be used by another group later that day. Finucance said most of the students who left items on the bus had secured them in the overhead bins near the front. However, Finucane said he did not know where on the bus the items were taken from.

Finucane said thefts from NIU buses are very rare.

“It’s been more than 10 years since we’ve had a theft off one of the buses,” Finucane said.

Finucane said the doubling up of buses is also rare, and the department does this in order to “keep the cost down for students and university departments.” The department’s policies will be reviewed, Finucane said, but could not say if any will be changed.

“Obviously, we regret anything that has happened and that the victims have been inconvenienced,” he said. “We’ll do our best to make sure it does not happen again.”