Violence declined at three of Denver’s five crime “hot spots,” but shootings still on the rise citywide

When Denver police Cmdr. Brad Qualley drives through the area around South Federal Boulevard and West Alameda Avenue, it’s the things that are no longer there that stand out to him.

Homicides and shootings have fallen substantially over the last two years in three of the five crime “hot spots” identified in 2020 by Denver police. Former Chief Paul Pazenas part of a plan to mitigate a wave of homicides and shootings. Through the program, police focused on those areas and worked with community organizations as well as other city agencies to make the locations less receptive to criminal behavior.

That doesn’t just mean arresting people or increasing police presence, but also looking at lighting and working with nearby businesses and housing complexes to identify the origins of the problems. Sometimes the source of problems can be narrowed to a single block, a gas station or a bar, he said. The number of homicides and non-fatal shootings around the Holly Street intersection fell from 20 in 2020 to three in the first eight months of 2022. At Peoria and 47th, the number of incidents fell from 37 to five.

But the number of non-fatal shootings so far this year in Denver is higher or on par with the same time period during the two previous years. At least 239 people have been injured in shootings so far this year, compared to 250 in the same time period in 2020 and 190 in the same time period of 2021. That team and the district’s community resource officers spoke with business owners and residents in the area to identify problems, like the broken-down cars on Hazel Court. People were using the cars as spots to sell and use drugs, as well as a place to sell guns, Qualley said.

She noticed officers in the area more frequently over the past year. One officer even called her one night when he realized she hadn’t clasped the lock on the store that her family runs.

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