Denver, Colorado, is coping with a violent crime wave that is threatening to overtake 1981, when Denver clocked 100 homicides, as the bloodiest year on record. In a bid to curb crime, city leaders have called for community relations with police to strengthen and for any potential policing reforms to be made after weighing data showing the initiative would be effective.
"We have to look at solutions that are rooted in evidence and data, so that way we truly can get those better outcomes and work to enhance the relationship and the trust that has been fractured not only across the country, but here locally as well," Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said Tuesday during a town hall hosted by the Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics.
Denver notched an especially bloody year in 2020, with a 51% increase in homicides compared to 2019, the Denver Post reported last year. Aggravated assaults have shot up by 34.8% from 2019 to 2021, auto thefts are up 137.5% during the same time frame and burglaries are up by 41.6%, Axios reported.
The Denver police chief said during the virtual event that reforms to policing need to be made when they are rooted in data, noting that sometimes initiatives leaders believe will work actually made an issue worse.
"There are some times that we think, ‘We want this type of training.’ And then you do an evaluation on that particular training, and you find out that that training exacerbated the problem," he said.
Pazen has previously supported alternative emergency response initiatives, such as one that pairs mental health clinicians with paramedics for calls, but said those programs don't work to prevent crime and can't be treated as a cure-all to policing, The Denver Gazette reported.
"This is not the panacea, that you just throw out a bunch of alternative responses, and crime just magically goes down," he added. "You have to address the criminal behavior, and you have to address criminal behavior in a smart way."
City leaders at the event proposed citizens help curb crime by: joining a neighborhood watch group; contacting local government officials about proposals to curb crime; participating in various Denver Police Department community initiatives; safely storing firearms, among other steps.