DENVER (KDVR) — Thieves targeted a Denver non-profit daycare, stealing catalytic converters off child transport vans on two different occasions.

Children’s Haven childcare on Sheridan Boulevard is covered in signs: children’s turkey projects, daycare logos and a slew of warnings explaining this area is under watch.

“Where we park our vans, it is well lit, 24-hour surveillance camera signs, it is just like they just don’t care,” Children’s Haven Childcare Center Facilities Manager Bill Fridgen said. 

Despite the many notifications, thieves picked to prioritize profit over children transport safety not once, but on two different occasions now.

“One (van) is still in the shop with electrical damage, we’ve had our second one back for a week and on 3:30 Friday morning, when I started the vans to take the kids to school, the noise was there and the catalytic converters were cut off for a second time,” Fridgen said. 

Both times, cameras caught these crooks in action. During the latest incident on Friday, a woman driver stopped and stared at the camera for a minute before parking and popping the trunk for a man who enters and leaves with the converter in less than four minutes. It took two guys around four minutes as well to steal two converters back in December. 

“It’s a feeling of helplessness, frustration, a lot of anger almost,” Fridgen said. 

Fridgen is most hurt because these thefts also hurt the children they care for.

“It’s not only a business and a nonprofit business, it effects the kids relying on us to get to a school they haven’t been to in six months,” he said. “They’re all excited and we can’t get them there.”

If you have any information, you are urged to call our partners at Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP.