Denver police patrolman Aaron Carlson has known about the crime rate on East Colfax Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, but in the past few months, he’s become particularly familiar.
Since October, Carlson and his partner, patrolman Adam Foisy, have spent most of their time on patrol around the 300 to 1000 block of Colfax as part of an effort to give the busy street more attention and hopefully reduce the crime in a high-rate area. Both men know it will be a long road to clean up the street.
“Colfax has been the way it is for so long. Itap going to be a process,” Carlson said.
The effort to increase service along Colfax began when the Colfax Business Improvement District hired off-duty police and a private security firm in July to patrol the street. In October, Denver District 6 commander Ronald Saunier reallocated personnel to add patrol time along Colfax at various hours.
The results are mostly anecdotal and Saunier says itap too early to tell if the change is a success.
“We’re still looking at it. Itap too early of a snapshot,” Saunier said. “We’ve seen some bit of a decline and heard some positive results from businesses and citizens.”
Carlson and Foisy are the two main patrolmen who have Colfax Avenue as their beat. They patrol on bikes or on foot — or in a car in inclement weather — allowing for more contact with business owners, residents and people who hang out in the area, legitimately or not.
They stay in regular touch with businesses and find out their issues and problems and then follow-up throughout the weeks and months.
“Communication is vital to everyone’s success,” Saunier said.
Frank Locantore, Colfax Business Improvement District community manager, led the pursuit of more police and security on Colfax early this year, and the district came up with $30,000 to pay for moonlighting officers and Mile High Protective Services, a private security organization, to beef up patrols.
The hope was that Denver police would eventually be able to allocate more resources to Colfax.
“It would demonstrate a proof of concept on how it would be beneficial with idea that we could then work with the city and say, ‘This is why we need dedicated attention.’ That is kind of exactly what happened,” Locantore said. “The commander came with the plan that we have a dedicated bike patrol, a couple of officers doing 40 hours a week and various times on Colfax.”
Locantore met with Chief Robert White, Saunier and City Councilman Wayne New to discuss what resources could be allocated to the area.
New praised the efforts by Denver police and said it is a priority to get crime off of Colfax in order to help spur development in the corridor.
“We never will attract business growth and residential if we don’t address the crime. I think itap so important,” New said.
The Colfax district covers the area along Colfax roughly between Grant and Josephine streets — the highest concentration of drug activity and crime occurs between Grant and Washington streets. As patrols have increased, some have noticed that activity move east.
However, some residents are glad to see the increased patrols, even if it remains unclear whether the patrols are reducing crime.
“This is very organic. Residents are just pleased just to see the police presence,” said Alex Torres, a member of the Swallow Hill Neighborhood Association in the area. “Safety is a concern and the perception of a lack of safety is also a concern. I think it helps from that point of view.”
Foisy and Carlson said they hope the police department will be able to give them more help in the future with more patrol officers, as does Locantore, but both parties understand that the department might not have the resources.
“The police department is working hard on this, but clearly has a limit with the resources they have.”