If divvying up Denver’s cops among the police department’s six districts were as simple as cutting the pie in equal-sized slices, one might conclude that District 5 in far northeast Denver has too many cops.
Things are more complicated than that, but recent news that the district has nearly twice as many cops per 10,000 population as southwest Denver’s District 4 has gotten the City Council’s attention.
Based on population alone, District 5’s police staffing “is disproportionate,” Chief Gerry Whitman concedes, “but it’s an isolated district … stand-alone, isolated and very large.”
District 5 is the smallest district in terms of population (47,627), but at 60 square miles (including the growing Stapleton and Green Valley Ranch developments) it has the biggest area to patrol. And, as a “peninsula” that juts out of the city’s northeast corner, it’s removed from other districts, as Whitman describes.
A Denver Post study of police deployment reported last Sunday that District 5, with only 6.1 percent of all calls for police service, had 14.5 officers per 10,000 people as of November 2005, versus 8.7 officers per 10,000 residents in District 4, with 149,514 residents and 23 percent of all calls for police service. District 6, which includes downtown Denver, eclipses other districts with 23.5 officers per 10,000 population.
But District 5’s staffing of 69 officers was the smallest group, equal to 53 percent of District 4’s 130 officers. That works out to 1.2 cops per square mile in District 5, compared with 9.5 officers per square mile in northwest Denver District 1 and 5.1 officers per square mile in District 4. Moreover, average response times for critical incidents and emergencies are fairly comparable in the districts. Indeed, District 5’s average of 3 minutes and 53 seconds for a “critical incident” call is more than a minute longer than District 4’s.
Whitman says other factors also are involved in determining how to allocate officers, including crime trends, which are constantly monitored and updated.
The statistics have stirred up some councilmembers, with Council President Rosemary Rodriguez declaring, “I think the chief has some explaining about staffing to do.” And District 2 Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz complained that the department isn’t equally distributing new officers around the city.
We don’t expect councilmembers to forgo the time-honored duty of looking after their own districts. But the staffing issue is complex, and it deserves thoughtful examination by the council – and detailed explanation by police brass.
It also would be prudent to await the conclusions of an ongoing Hanover Justice Group study of the Denver police to see how the city best can deploy its law-enforcement resources. The assessment is part of Mayor John Hickenlooper’s police reform package and should provide some hard facts on how best to use Denver’s finest for maximum effect.
