DENVER (KDVR) — A brazen bike thief in Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe was caught on camera trying to pin a Good Samaritan with an SUV.
It happened back on July 1. The two men victimized in the case say the reached out to the Problem Solvers after becoming discouraged with the Denver Police investigation into their cases. It all began when Sean Dubois says a woman got into his garage and pedaled away on his $5,000 mountain bike.
“It makes me livid. I was just gutted, you know. It’s one of those things where you wish it wasn’t you,” Dubois said.
Dubois wasn’t home at the time, but it turns out not only was the theft recorded on camera, so was what happened next.
The woman rode the bike around the corner, where she discovered the bike had a flat tire. So she stopped and removed the tires from the bike and began carrying them away. That’s when she was approached by a vigilant neighbor named Josh Berman, who knew something was up.
‘She was trying to take me out’
“They did not look like they belonged to her and I asked her, where did you get those wheels?” Berman said.
Berman started following her and hit record on his phone.
“She turns around and swings one of the wheels and hits me in the chest. At that point, I back away and she’s screaming and yelling, and there’s a FedEx delivery guy, and she’s screaming, ‘This guy’s stalking me. He won’t leave me alone,” Berman said.
At that point, Berman backed away and returned to his office, where he discovered the rest of the bike in the right-of-way. Berman picked up the bike and began carrying it to his parking lot.
That’s when the woman sped into the parking lot in a Ford Bronco and smashed into another vehicle while trying to hit Berman. The entire incident was caught on surveillance camera.
“She was trying to hit me. She was trying to take me out. She wanted that bike enough she was willing to run me over,” Berman said.
Berman abandoned the bike and ran inside his office, telling co-workers to call 911 as the woman eventually drove away, dropping pieces of scrap metal out of the back of her SUV.
The two said they actually tracked down the thief in a nearby homeless camp, but they say police refuse to go after her. Both men say they’re frustrated the woman hasn’t been caught and believe police should be doing more to catch dangerous bike thieves.
“There’s zero fear of recourse for these criminals and what they’re doing. They could care less because there’s no consequences for their actions and it’s just shocking and appalling what’s going on,” said Berman.
Dubois is doubtful he’ll ever get his bike back. He’s created a GoFundMe, hoping friends and strangers might be willing to help him as he raises money for a new bike.
Bike theft stats
On average, four bikes are swiped in Denver every day.
Bike thefts reached a record high in Denver in 2020, up about 26% from the year before. The number of swiped bikes spiked all over Colorado.
But bike thefts in Denver are down compared to a year ago. That number has reached more than 800 so far in 2021.