A Colorado man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder for trying to run over two women that he assumed were lesbians.
The women were walking down the street near Grandview High School in southeast Aurora in February 2023 when the perpetrator, Vitalie Oprea, who was driving past in his parents’ vehicle, first spotted the pair. Witnesses said he made offensive hand gestures and yelled at the women out of the car’s driver side window before making an illegal U-turn and driving on the wrong side of East Arapahoe Road to pursue them.
Fearing for their lives, the two ran away and were chased by Oprea, who drove the car, which he did not have permission from his parents to be operating, over the sidewalk and into a field in order to try and run over the women. The women eventually escaped into a pickup truck, which Oprea proceeded to crash into. Then, Oprea left his own vehicle and approached the wreck, kicked the truck, and opened the passenger door, trying to grab one of the victims before running away and eventually being caught by police later that day in Arvada.
The attempted murder was condemned by Lauren Agee, Deputy District Attorney for Arapahoe County. “These women did nothing to provoke this violence,” she said. “They were targeted, chased, and left fearing for their lives. Our office takes hate-motivated violence extremely seriously, and attacks rooted in hate will be met with accountability and significant consequences.”
According to the DA’s office, Oprea told the arresting officer after being detained and placed into custody that he attacked the women “because I saw them kissing and they were lesbians and I wanted to kill them.”
The situation is surely a nightmare scenario every queer person has intrusively thought about and mentally tried to prepare for. At least we can rest slightly easier knowing that this psycho whack job is off the streets, and will stay behind bars where he belongs for the next two decades.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
