I could hear the gunshots from The Post.
Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. And from our windows, I saw people running away.
Denver is a big city and gunfire is not a rarity. But in front of the Capitol, at lunch on a weekday and in the presence of schoolchildren?
The shooting last Thursday was unusual, disturbing and should be a wakeup call for policy makers who have let matters get out of hand in this area of downtown.
It’s time — past time, in fact — for the city to get the drug dealers and other criminals out of Civic Center and keep a tighter rein on what goes on there.
This should not be an intractable law enforcement problem. It’s not caused by some vast deficiency in social services.
This is an issue of public priorities and whether we are willing to give over the greenspace that is a center of civic life in Denver to a bunch of threatening, 20-something-year-old thugs.
The unvarnished truth is that anyone who tries to raise alarms about the open-air drug market that occurs in the park on a daily basis is subsequently accused of being antagonistic toward homeless people.
Denver Police Chief Robert White told me the individuals believed to be involved in the shooting, which took place just outside the park near a bus stop, were not homeless.
As to whether the matter was gang- or drug-related, or what connection the suspects had to the park, if any, is unclear. It is still under investigation.
But it’s very clear the gunfire, which did not result in any injuries, has shaken up a lot of people and focused a spotlight on problems at the park.
Ever since the Occupy Denver movement, it seems as though more people are hanging around Civic Center. It has been noticeable.
Yes, assuredly, some of the people who spend time in the park are homeless. Others are business people having lunch. Or schoolchildren on a field trip to the state’s capital city.
Most rational people who know what it is to live in a city aren’t going to lose their minds over a man sleeping under a tree, his head on a backpack that probably carries his worldly possessions. Nor should they.
Denver is a compassionate city that engages in significant homeless outreach efforts. Whether you think they’re enough depends on what you think a city’s role ought to be. For some people — well-meaning, I grant you — it will never be enough.
But what about the aggressive dope peddlers who work the park? What about the robberies, the fights? Crime statistics show a 35 percent jump in crimes in Civic Center this year over last.
Since June, the cops have significantly increased their presence in the park. And the city has installed 14 HALO surveillance cameras.
Good and good.
Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, executive director of the Civic Center Conservancy, told me she was walking through the park recently with several people, having just attended a meeting — coincidentally — on Civic Center safety.
Someone from the park, she said, got in their faces, demanding to know why they were there.
Lent is not a homeless hater. She is not trying to make the park a place catering just to the suit-wearing set.
And who knows whether the confronter was a drug dealer, homeless, both or neither.
The point is, people shouldn’t feel threatened there. This corridor between the Capitol and city hall is an important public space.
There should be a commitment to a continuation of increased police patrols in the park, and follow-up prosecution.
Civic Center cannot be ceded to criminals and miscreants who would claim it as their own, the rest of us be damned.
E-mail Denver Post editorial writer Alicia Caldwell at acaldwell@denverpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AliciaMCaldwell
