DENVER (KDVR) — A car was stolen right in front of the owner in the Washington Park West neighborhood on Jan. 4.
The owner of that vehicle, Arjun Gosal, went to a home at Pearl and Virginia streets to drop off a late Christmas card and thought it would be a quick trip. So, he left his car running, creating a perfect opportunity for the thief.
Video shows the suspect is simply walking down the street and then approaches the car, hops in the driver’s seat and drives off. This act startled Gosal and his neighbor in the process.
“I was definitely responsible for creating the opportunity for someone stealing it, but I know this neighborhood well and I never thought something like this,” Gosal said.
Gosal left his phone inside, so he was able to track it and found the vehicle near the Country Club towers less than 30 minutes later, but everything inside was gone.
“The thing that I was really sad about was my work, so my laptop got taken so I lost two months of work which was not backed up anywhere else,” he said.
Now, he wants this to serve as a warning. Never get so comfortable in your own neighborhood that you stop being alert.
“This is a good example of you know the police cannot always be there to help us, we should help ourselves by doing things that are in our capacity to prevent something like this from happening and obviously one of them is to leave your car running in the middle of the street and don’t leave it unlocked,” he said.
Gosal said neither the culprit nor any of his belongings were found after the crime.