A brazen burglary involving a moving truck occurred at eBike USA on Thursday in Denver’s Cherry Creek.
In surveillance footage sent to The Denver Post by an eBike USA store manager, operators of a open U-Haul truck ram it backwards into the front window of the electric bike retailer at around 4:40 a.m. Thursday. Two men wearing hooded jackets and gloves jump out of the vehicle and rummaged through the store.
In the minute-long video, one man goes off-screen to the left of the camera’s view while the other remains on screen, picking through some of the bikes and a mangled window frame that was damaged in the incident.
According to eBike USA store manager Michael Paoloni, the men were after a Sondors Rockstar bike valued at $2,999. One of the men was trying to take the Rockstar from a platform, Paoloni said Saturday, while the other was clearing a path in the store between other bikes on display and shattered glass from the window.
“(The men) didn’t know that it was 85 pounds,” Paoloni said. One struggled with the heavy bike before it fell.
A Cherry Creek North security guard spotted activity from the store. The guard flashed a light in the store’s direction, Paoloni said, and the two men left the store empty-handed.
“They were not in the store long,” he said.
The store was closed Thursday as broken glass and damage was cleared, but it was “business as usual” at eBike USA on Friday with several customers stopping by Saturday.
“We were concerned for the safety of our workers and customers,” Paoloni said. And while store employees stay alert to suspicious activity, one would not expect a moving truck smashing through a window.
“No procedures can prevent anything like that,” Paoloni said.
