The 17 people vying to be Denver’s next mayor agree on one thing: The city feels less safe than it did the last time there was an open race for its top leader 12 years ago.
Crime data proves that to be true. Denver, like many large U.S. cities, has experienced a spike in homicides and gun violence as well as overdose deaths since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Questions about crime and public safety have been central for the 17 candidates running to succeed Mayor Michael Hancock as the leader of the state’s largest city.
Twelve of the candidates use the word “safe” in their campaign slogans or name safety as a key issue in their platforms. Several have released detailed public safety platforms with solutions ranging from adding 400 more police officers to expanding non-police responses to 911 calls.
“Public safety has come to the forefront because Denver and the state of Colorado used to be remarkably safe,” said former Denver police Chief Paul Pazen, who retired in October. “Now, we see some things we don’t like. We see teenagers getting shot outside of high schools. Murder rates are higher than they had been.”
Since Hancock took office in 2011:
Denver’s homicide rate nearly doubled, from 7.1 per 100,000 residents to 12.4 homicides per 100,000 residents — though it fell in 2022 for the first time since 2018. Homicide rates in Denver remain significantly lower than those recorded in the early 1990s.
The per-capita rate of motor vehicle theft has more than tripled and the rate of aggravated assaults has nearly doubled
The rates of some crimes — like robbery and burglary — have remained relatively level
The rate of drug deaths also has nearly doubled, from 36 deaths per 100,000 residents to 60 deaths per 100,000 residents
Civic leaders, community advocates and the candidates themselves agree the next mayor needs a bold vision to confront crime and policing in Denver. But there’s no consensus on how to do so.
“What we’re looking for in a mayor is someone who is creative, who doesn’t take the lazy approach, which is to delegate every public safety issue to law enforcement,” said Robert Davis, project coordinator for the Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety.
The mayor’s influence on public safety lies in their power to appoint, budget and lobby. The mayor has the power to hire and fire the city’s police chief, sheriff and director of public safety, and decides how much money each of their departments should receive. The mayor appoints Denver County Court judges as well.
The mayor also has the power to veto or approve City Council proposals and sway lawmakers at the state Capitol.
“Typically, the (Denver) mayor has an outsized voice in the state of Colorado,” Pazen said. “A mayor in this city can influence the entire state and lead the way in many of the significant challenges we are facing.”
Several of the candidates have direct experience with Denver’s public safety system:
Al Gardner chaired the Citizen Oversight Board and serves on the Denver Civil Service Commission, which oversees police and fire department hiring and promotions as well as hears disciplinary appeals
Councilwoman Debbie Ortega served on the Crime Prevention and Control Commission and her daughter is a major in the Denver Sheriff Department
Kelly Brough worked on Department of Public Safety policy as chief of staff to Mayor John Hickenlooper and served on the Denver Civil Service Commission
Rep. Leslie Herod sat on the House Judiciary Committee and has passed numerous bills related to policing and public safety, including the landmark 2020 policing reform bill SB-217
Lisa Calderón spent decades pushing for change in Denver’s legal system, taught university classes on criminal justice, worked as a victim advocate for domestic violence survivors and led a project helping people reintegrate into society after incarceration
Terrance Roberts was a Bloods gang member and spent years in prison before leaving the gang and becoming an advocate for violence prevention and police reform
The April mayoral election is the first since massive protests in 2020 calling for reform — or abolition — of the Denver Police Department.
Thousands of Denverites took to the streets in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The protests prompted conversations here and nationwide about the use of force, alternatives to policing and accountability.
While the protests prompted some change in Denver, the next mayor should consider more reform, advocates said.
The next mayor must creatively reassign duties from the police department to other city agencies or community organizations, said Davis, the task force leader. The Support Team Assisted Response, or STAR, program — which sends a clinician and paramedics to some 911 calls instead of police — is a great model that should be expanded and replicated, he said.
“I don’t think the mayor’s job is to re-establish trust between community and law enforcement… it’s the mayor’s job to minimize interaction between law enforcement and community,” he said.
The next mayor also needs to take seriously the 112 recommendations put forth by the task force after the 2020 protests, Davis said. Seventy-six of those recommendations were directed at the mayor’s office but, overall, the Hancock administration has slow-walked the implementation of the recommendations, Davis said.
Some of the recommendations for the mayor’s office include prohibiting the use of handcuffs on minors, creating a civilian review commission that has the power to discipline law enforcement, and requiring the police and sheriff’s departments to pay for misconduct settlements out of their own budgets instead of from the city’s general fund.
“We’d get bogged down if we went through each and every one they didn’t fulfill,” he said.
The mayor must remember that crime is rooted in deeper social ills, like lack of affordable housing, lack of opportunity and substance use, said Julia Richman, chair of the Citizen Oversight Board.
“It’s just not more cops on the beat,” she said. “We want community-led solutions.”
Size of Denver’s police force
But more cops on the beat are exactly what some candidates and residents think is needed. One candidate, Andy Rougeot, promised to add 400 new officers to the streets.
Pazen said the department needs more police officers, but those officers should be carefully deployed to prevent over-policing and maximize crime prevention.
“It’s not just a raw number increase equals a decrease in crime,” he said.
During Hancock’s administration, the authorized strength of the Denver Police Department increased by 10% — from 1,445 to 1,596 — as the city’s population increased by 14%.
Clearance rates for violent crimes have remained steady during that time, data collected by the FBI shows. But the proportion of property crimes solved has fluctuated. Denver police in 2011 cleared 8% of property crime cases and grew that number to 20% by 2014.
But the percentage of cases cleared has fallen every year since. In 2021, Denver police once again cleared only 8% of property crime cases.
The number of positions at the Denver Police Department is similar to or more than the number of budgeted officers in other departments in similar-sized cities. This year, the Seattle Police Department funded approximately 1,300 positions and the Nashville Police Department budgeted for 1,608.
Currently, 1,448 of Denver’s 1,596 officer positions are filled and 70 recruits are in the academy, according to Denver police.
In his 2023 budget, Hancock allocated $611 million to the Department of Public Safety — a 33% increase from the $461 million allotted to the department in his first budget. The city in 2021 temporarily decreased the public safety budget in anticipation of a pandemic-fueled financial crisis — not as a result of protesters’ demands to defund police — and restored and increased the department’s funding in 2022.
Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, said she’d love to see an analysis of the department’s staffing and whether it’s enough to address the city’s needs.
Adding more officer positions won’t matter if the city can’t find enough qualified applicants, Richman said. The city has struggled to recruit and retain officers and has had dozens of vacancies over the last few years.
“A very holistic approach”
The city should consider using the savings from unfilled police and sheriff’s positions to pay for social services, record expungement or non-police response programs like STAR, Richman said.
Regardless of staffing, the next mayor needs to help restore a sense of safety downtown by coordinating police and social service response, Garrett said. There are two separate issues happening downtown that require separate responses: an increase in some crimes and homelessness, she said.
The perception of a lack of safety downtown is driven by visible substance use and mental health crises, she said. The next mayor will have to be creative in finding compassionate solutions for those people, Garrett said.
That’s going to be the next mayor’s biggest challenge, said Carol Peeples, director of Remerg, a nonprofit that helps people leaving jail and prison find resources to reintegrate.
The next mayor must come up with a solution for the people who are unhoused, deeply mentally ill, addicted to drugs, unstable and dangerous. Many of those people have been kicked out of the city’s shelter programs and cannot meaningfully engage with service providers, she said.
“We need a mayor who will come in with a very holistic approach,” Garrett said.
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