Denver issues a ticket to the owner of the stolen vehicle

DENVER (KDVR) — Even though Colorado ranks at the top of the nation in car thefts, Denver’s law enforcement agency doesn’t have access to a statewide database of stolen vehicles.

According to a city spokesperson, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has blocked access to the list for Denver’s Right of Way Enforcement Division because it is not a police department.

The news came as a surprise to Ed Beery, who recently received a citation for a traffic ticket that was reportedly placed on his stolen work truck more than a week after it was reported stolen.

“Eight days after we reported the theft, the city of Denver issued the citation,” Beery said. “It’s misconduct.”

Beery said the truck was finally recovered from an impound parking lot two weeks later after being dismantled into pieces. His company had to sell what was left of the truck and buy a new one.

“All this time goes into producing things that we do for a living and now we have to buy a vehicle and for those who don’t know, that’s a pretty big undertaking these days,” he said.

Beery questions what condition the truck was in when the city discovered it was parked upside down near Yale Avenue and Fillmore Street.

“They had no suspicion whatsoever,” he said. “They just put the ticket on the vehicle and that was it. Well, that would suggest to me that it may have been in better condition at that point than when we got it back. At that point, perhaps it wasn’t a useless vehicle, but something we could still have used.”

FOX31 has reached out to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and will update this story once a response is received.