Two men tried to make off with Medford’s most visible and interactive piece of public art early Saturday, leaving behind a damaged bronze chess-player statue in downtown’s Vogel Plaza.

Now police are searching for the suspects who a witness said used a sport-utility vehicle in their attempt to steal the life-sized bronze of a sitting man bent over a table with a chess set on it. An empty seat was on the opposite side for real people to join him.

The men allegedly rammed the statue with the SUV at around 2 a.m. Saturday, then tried to wrestle the heavy statue into the SUV, according to police.

But a security guard hired for the weekend Jazz Jubilee spotted them and yelled toward the would-be thieves, who dropped the statue and sped off, Medford police Lt. Mike Moran said.

The statue, as well as two separate bronze tables with chess boards inviting players, was placed in Vogel Plaza two years ago as a way of encouraging the public to interact with art.

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"We’re a little surprised," said Bev Power, a customer-service specialist at the Medford Parks and Recreation Department, which commissioned the piece.

"It’s been a point of pride to the city to have a piece of public art like this," Power said. "And someone wanted to steal it."

And at a price of $25,000, the statue was something of a steal from its creator, Pleasant Hill artist Peter Helzer, whose bronzes adorn city parks in Bend and Portland as well as the Hult Center in Eugene and the Portland Zoo.

In this case, however, messing with the chess man translates into potential charges of first-degree criminal mischief and attempted first-degree theft.

The security guard described the vehicle as a gray or white Chevrolet Yukon, and furnished a license plate number to police, Moran said. Police traced that plate to a vehicle in Klamath County, but it was not at the registered address when Klamath authorities visited it Monday at the request of Medford police, Moran said.

Medford investigators will head to Klamath County this week to follow up, Moran said.

The statue had been vandal-free since it was set in August 2002, except one bronze chess piece had been stolen, Power said.

The Vogel vandals irritated Lucille Dunn, who on Sunday traveled from Phoenix to downtown Medford specifically to snap a photograph of her husband, David, sitting opposite the chess player.

All they found was a turned-over chess table and no man.

"Oh, brother," Lucille Dunn said when she learned of the attempted theft Monday. "What kind of idiots do we have around here?"

The chess player was seized by police as evidence. The tables and chair remain at Vogel Plaza.

Those who study the chess board on the overturned table may eventually realize the statue is of a man hunched over his king caught in a check-mate.

"He really lost out this time," Power said.

But not for good, Power said. Parks officials plan to take several photographs of the damaged art and ship them to Helzer for advice on proper repairs that can return a piece of public art to the plaza.

"Sure, we’ll get it back (to the plaza)," Power said. "We’ll persevere until we do it."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com