Man Who Tried to Run Down Same-Sex Couple in Colorado Sentenced to 20 Years

Bias-motivated crimes, unfortunately, do happen, and while they’re not necessarily overly common in Colorado, they certainly have taken place in the Centennial State.

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One perpetrator of one of these types of crimes has just been convicted of attempted murder for targeting a same sex couple and attempting to murder them with his vehicle, and now he will spend the next 20 years behind bars.

Bizarre Colorado Hate Crime Took Place in 2023

On February 19, 2023, a now-47-year-old man named Vitalie Oprea was driving a vehicle that he’d borrowed from his parents in a section of the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, near the intersection of East Arapahoe Road and South Liverpool Street, when he was made aware of a pair of women that he perceived to be a same sex couple.

Oprea then made a U-turn and, according to witnesses, began yelling obscenities at the women and making obscene gestures before attempting to run them over with the vehicle he was driving.

The women, understandably shaken by the encounter, fled for safety in a grassy area belonging to nearby Grandview High School, then were able to enter a pickup truck.

However, Oprea continued to pursue the women, ramming the vehicle and opening one of its doors in an attempt to drag one of the women out of the vehicle.

Oprea was arrested later that day in Arvada and made the following, shocking comment to the officer who arrested him:

I drove at the women because I saw them kissing and they were lesbians and I wanted to kill them.

The man pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted murder with a violent crime sentence enhancer and has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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Check out the full, official story from the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office here.