For the past four years, Mike Horan has hung a Pride flag outside of his Lakewood home during the month of June. He's never had any issues until June 9, when two masked men came to his home and stole the flag. In the surveillance video, the men arrived around 3 a.m., removed the flag and then flipped off the camera. It appears they had already stolen another flag prior to arriving at Horan's home. "It was just somebody expressing their displeasure at me supporting a marginalized community," said Horan. He noticed the missing flag the next morning when he woke up. "I noticed my flag was gone so I pulled up the Ring camera and there was the footage of a few gentlemen stealing the flag," said Horan. Within two minutes of stealing the flag, they returned with a note written on toilet paper. On one side, it had a racial slur. On the other, a homophobic slur written. Horan reported it to Lakewood Police the same day. He asked that they consider it a hate crime due to the note that was included. "It’s not hurting anyone. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it," said Horan. "They’re human beings like everyone else." He has since replaced the flag with a newer, larger one. He has two padlocks on it now to make it harder to remove. He plans to remove it at night and leave it up only during the day. "First, theft is not the right answer. You shouldn’t steal anything from anybody. Second, guys, get a life. Seriously, find something productive to do with your time," said Horan. The stolen flag comes at a time when incidents have been reported across the metro including Arvada and Wheat Ridge. So far this month, six Pride flags have been stolen in Arvada in the first twelve days of Pride month.