[music playing]
NARRATOR: Now to Denver, Colorado,
and a neighborly good deed that doesn't
turn out how it's supposed to.
It all starts in this alley in the city's arts district.
A battered SUV pulls up.
And the driver loads a length of scrap metal into her truck.
But look closely.
Something in that garage has caught her eye.
She takes off.
But a little later, she's back, this time, on foot.
And guess where she's headed, straight
for this mountain bike.
Now, this could be the end of the story, but it's not.
In fact, it's only the beginning for neighbor
Josh Berman, whose office backs onto this alleyway.
I was on my way back to the office after lunch.
And as I'm pulling into my office parking lot,
I see a woman carrying two large mountain bike
wheels out of the parking lot.
It raised some red flags.
It didn't look like they belonged to her.
And I couldn't imagine why she would
be walking out of our parking lot with these wheels.
So I stopped her and I asked her if I could help her.
And she looked at me, kind of got angry.
And said, no, I'm just trying to get out of the parking lot.
And she kind of rushes by me and starts
walking down the sidewalk.
NARRATOR: Josh doesn't know it yet,
but he has just met the bike thief.
And her getaway is not going to plan.
The bike has two flats, so she's now having to haul
it to her SUV piece by piece.
And boy, is she pissed.
As I'm getting my float out to start shooting her,
she turns around and swings a bike wheel
and actually hits me in the chest.
And she's yelling and screaming.
I mean, at that point, I'd kind of
had enough, and turned around, and decided
to get on with my day.
And as I was walking back on the sidewalk towards my office,
I actually saw a mountain bike upside down in the right of way
in front of the office.
I went up to it and could tell very quickly that it was
a very expensive mountain bike and probably
the exact same mountain bike that she had just
removed these wheels off of.
NARRATOR: Josh suspects the bike is stolen,
probably from a neighbor.
So I've been involved in biking my entire life.
The bike was a late model Santa Cruz carbon
fiber frame mountain bike, which, I mean,
those are not cheap bikes.
They can run anywhere from $4,000
$5,000, $6,000, $7,000 and up.
It's definitely the kind of bike that, you know,
nobody would probably be riding on the streets of Denver.
So I picked it up, and I started walking back to my office.
And as I'm rounding the corner from the sidewalk
into the parking lot, catch out of the corner of my eye
something coming at me pulling into the parking lot
at a super high rate of speed
I jump out of the way at the last second,
just as she actually is hitting me
and kind of smashes me up against the car
in the parking lot.
And I mean, I'm immediately kind of in shock.
I'm trying to figure out, am I injured?
Bike is lying on the ground.
And she gets out of the car and starts screaming and yelling.
Calling me a thief?
Saying I've stolen her bike?
And just kind of out of her mind with a super crazed
look in her eye.
At that point, I realized that she was willing to run me over
and kill me to get this bike.
So I leave the bike, and I ran into my office
and started shouting to my coworkers to call 9-1-1.
NARRATOR: Josh then quickly returns
to the parking lot, determined to capture the thief
on his cell phone camera.
JOSH BERMAN: We walked back just to see her
pulling out of the parking lot.
And at that point, I got my phone out again.
And I mean, you literally see scrap metal
falling out of the back of this dilapidated Bronco
with no plates.
And she's still screaming and yelling while she's
driving down the street.
[shouting]
I mean, at that point, I kind of just
considered myself lucky that I wasn't more seriously injured
and went into the office, where we
started looking at the security cams
and saw that it was indeed our neighbor's bike that
had been stolen from the alley.
We went over to the neighbor's house and knocked on the door
just as he was coming home.
And I got to break the bad news to him
that, unfortunately, his bike had been stolen,
and showed him the footage.
NARRATOR: Josh and his neighbor Shawn, who owns the bike,
have both filed complaints with the Denver Police.
But so far, no arrests have been made.
Law enforcement, I feel like, nationwide
is not prioritizing bike theft.
And obviously, there are a lot of bigger and more important
issues that we're all dealing with.
But at the same time, people have taken
it for granted that, you know, Denver
is a relatively safe city.
And they let their guard down.
I mean, it's a problem.
NARRATOR: Denver police suggest locking bikes, even
in a locked garage, and taking a selfie
next to the serial number to help officers reunite
a stolen cycle with its owner.