Sheryl Colaur flies a Pride flag every June, a tradition she started when she moved into her home in 2021. But this year, her flags have been a target: A man donning a ski mask and traveling by electric unicycle is stealing them.

Colaur lives in Longmont’s Harvest Junction Village neighborhood, where she says at least 10 of her neighbors have fallen victim to the same man, who steals Pride flags at night and evades detection.

The first incident took place over Memorial Day weekend.

“We have some seasonality with the flags that we put up. So during September and beyond, it’s always Packers season. In June, it’s Pride,” Colaur said.

This year, she got a head start on decorating and put up her Pride flag toward the end of May. On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, her flag was nowhere to be seen.

“We had a lot of really high winds that weekend. So initially I thought that maybe the wind was so strong it took the flag away. And then I looked closer at it, and the pole was pulled straight down. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s not the wind.’”

Her flagpole — a couple of inches in diameter and set in the ground a few feet from her porch — was bent down, and the clips for the grommets were stretched out.

“Someone had obviously taken the flag and torn it straight down,” Colaur said.

After posting on Nextdoor to alert her neighbors of the incident, she purchased a new Pride flag. The responses on Nextdoor were a “mixed bag,” Colaur said, with someone even commenting, “Why do you need to advertise that you’re gay?”

But the majority of folks were very supportive.

Two weeks later, Colaur was home with her girlfriend when they suddenly heard a “pop, pop, pop” just after midnight.

“We kind of looked at each other. And I was thinking, were those gunshots?”

She headed downstairs to investigate. The flagpole was bent again, and her flag was gone. Colaur took to Nextdoor to update the neighborhood. “At this point, this is very clearly targeted. It’s a pattern of behavior.”

But Colaur didn’t want to back down to a bully. She ordered even more Pride decor for her house: two additional Pride flags, a rainbow doormat, several mini flags to stick into the wreath hanging on her front door, a jumbo-size banner that says, “Love always wins.”

But Colaur’s story was not unique. She said her neighbor Mike McFerrin, who lives a block over, was also targeted by a masked man.

On June 7, McFerrin rallied the neighborhood together, starting a GoFundMe to replace stolen Pride flags for himself, Colaur and several other victims of flag theft in the neighborhood. Colaur filed police reports, installed additional cameras (up to this point, the man had strategically avoided being visible by her Ring doorbell camera) and put up a metal fence around her flagpole.

These additional security measures did not prevent a third incident of flag-swiping Monday evening. This time, Colaur said, the thief was bolder. In doorbell camera video reviewed by the Times-Call, a tall, masked man rolled up to her home via electric unicycle at 9:18 p.m.

As he stepped onto her front porch, Colaur’s doorbell camera lit up, sensing his motion, startling the man. He hastily tried to tear up the flag over her banister, grabbed at a smaller flag in a flower pot, and ran away. Doorbell video Colaur’s next-door neighbor had shared with her shows that at 9:23 p.m., a man fitting the same description stole a small flag from that porch.

“It almost makes this laughable, that he’s riding a unicycle around to tear down Pride flags,” Colaur said. “I don’t know where he’s coming from or why he has so much vitriol for the LGBTQ community, but he obviously has some bigoted views if he thinks that by stealing Pride flags, we might be a little less gay.”

Police are seeking the public’s help in solving the case, asking anyone with information to call 303-651-8501.

“We understand how upsetting the recent theft of flags has been for our community and continue to work with the neighborhood to gather evidence and statements related to these incidents,” public safety spokeswoman Robin Ericson wrote in a statement emailed to the Times-Call.

Colaur said she is concerned that the thief is escalating in his actions, especially because she has a young child at home. During the thefts Monday, it wasn’t fully dark outside yet.

But she takes heart in knowing that her neighbors are banding together as allies, with about 20 additional homes putting Pride flags in their yards. “It’s nice to have the neighborhood rally around the LGBTQ community,” she said.