Fed up with criminals who treat fines and jail as merely the cost of doing business, police are now using a revised city ordinance to grab the criminals’ tools — such as cars, houses and bars.
Tuesday, police took the dramatic action of crushing two criminals’ vehicles — one belonging to a methamphetamine dealer who used his Monte Carlo as a delivery van and the other belonging to a habitual traffic offender who killed a 79-year-old woman walking across Colfax Avenue.
“You put them in jail and it’s nothing to them. But take away their car or their house and they really start to cry,” said Denver police Lt. Donna Starr-Gimeno, head of the public-nuisance-abatement unit.
A 1995 city ordinance, modified in 2005, now lets police use the civil side of the law to go after criminals by taking away their property. The police are careful when confiscating someone’s property, but they’re going after the bad guys in a big way.
In just the last six months of 2007, the nuisance abatement team grabbed 158 pieces of real estate and 1,143 cars. The houses and bars were taken for prostitution, narcotics and other crimes. Most were returned but seven owners lost their places outright and two had to pay $30,000 each to get them back.
Of the cars, 571 were taken from habitual traffic offenders, 307 for narcotics, 103 for prostitution, 65 for weapons, 40 for eluding, 33 for drag racing and 18 for using the cars during robberies or burglaries. Two were used in drive-by shootings, two in indecent exposure cases, one for bootlegging alcohol and one from a mother who drove her 14-year-old daughter to a prostitution gig.
Last year, the unit, which has only five detectives, brought in $4 million in fines, fees and proceeds from sales.
Two weeks ago, the unit seized a house at 832 Garfield Street where hallucinogenic mushrooms were being sold, Starr-Gimeno said, adding that the house was owned free and clear but the owners chose to walk away from it.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
