DENVER — A south Denver man woke up to find his BMW stolen from his garage Wednesday morning, and what he saw in his neighbor's surveillance video shocked him.
"They wanted that car really bad," Christopher VanBrunt said.
The video shows a group of thieves arriving at his garage in the Virginia Village neighborhood shortly before 5:30 a.m. They break into his Camaro parked out front, steal the garage opener, open the garage door and find what they're looking for: a 2016 BMW 328i.
But a Mercedes belonging to his daughter, Alena, was parked in the driveway, blocking the BMW. That didn't stop the thieves.
"It kind of makes me shake watching [the video] still, because who does this," Alena said.
The thieves attach a rope-like device to the back of the Mercedes and use a truck to forcefully drag it out of the driveway. One of the thieves then drives the BMW out of the garage and takes off. Christopher said the keys were inside the car.
"I was extremely emotional. I mean, this is completely degrading. You feel extremely violated," Alena said.
The family still doesn't understand how the thieves knew the BMW was parked in the garage or why they specifically targeted them.
"They could have taken all of the cars. It's crazy that they only went for this particular one," Alena said.
Christopher may be out of his retirement gift to himself, but he's thankful he can take the steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.
"Never again. Everything will be locked. Everything will be out. It's a different world," he said.
Denver Police is investigating the theft. If you have any information about the case, call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers.
