2023…The Summer of Violence
While laws and budget decisions can meaningfully address these issues, they can also make things worse.
From 2010 to 2022, the study identified 42 bills, passed by the Colorado legislature that impacted sentencing, incarceration, parole and release, length of stay, and recidivism. Colorado’s prison population decreased by 28%, “resulting in a dramatic number of people being reintegrated into society”. During that same time frame, Colorado’s crime rate skyrocketed by 32%.
This session the legislature did take a few steps in the right direction by banning ghost guns and changing the penalty for motor vehicle theft, but as the ranking illuminates, there is much more work to be done. Colorado leaders must do a deep dive and identify policy and budget spending solutions.
CSI also showed how having more uniformed police officers is associated with lower crime rates when comparing Colorado’s two largest cities. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of Colorado Springs uniformed officers per resident increased by 5.7% and its crime rate decreased by 15.9%. Conversely, in Denver, the number of uniformed police officers per resident decreased by 15.1% and its crime rate rose 32%.
Fair Elections Fund Failures
Herod used her taxpayer funds to pay attorney Mario Nicolais, a former Republican operative, a hefty $50,500. Nicolais bullied a small grassroots organization, Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver, for criticizing Herod online, costing the group a $250 fine. Why would a prominent politician abuse taxpayers’ campaign funds to suppress a tiny citizens group?
Crime Rates Continue to Rise…
Thanks to advocates for criminal justice reform, like Leslie Herod, crime rates in Colorado are among the worst in the nation.
We’re in the News!
Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver made Denver7 news!!
Lori Greenly, a resident of LoDo and a member of SACD walked through Union Station with Denver7’s Rob Harris and they witnessed a drug deal and an individual having a mental health crisis. Denver families have been avoiding downtown because of these issues.
Lori and SACD are advocating for mandatory treatment for the service resistant unhoused campers. We don’t want to watch these people die on the streets, that’s not compassion, and Denver is a compassionate city.
Harm “Reduction” Policies Prolong Drug Use and Increase Overdoses
Harm “reduction” (we at SACD like to call it harm induction) aims to reduce the risks of continued substance use rather than intervening to stop it. Less than 1% of users are entering treatment since harm-reduction policies have been expanded.
Harm reduction has “led to a huge increase in the amount of drugs on the streets-and now, an increase in crime”, including assault, prostitution and drug dealing.
TREATMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY MUST REMAIN THE PRIMARY PATHWAYS TO A HEALTHY, DRUG-FREE LIFE.
“Meet folks where they are, but don’t LEAVE THEM THERE.”
Decriminalization Kills
The decriminalization of fentanyl <4grams in 2019 was intended as a way to expand freedom without harming people; however, it actually resulted hundreds of lost lives. This 4gram limit specified by House Bill 19-1263 contains enough fentanyl to kill between 2,000 and 5,741 people. Fentanyl is lethal in doses that are barely detectable. Before House Bill 19-1263 decriminalized fentanyl <4grams, the monthly number of fentanyl overdose deaths in Colorado was just over 10. NOW, the average number of overdose deaths from fentanyl per month has risen to almost EIGHTY (80).
“Soft on Crime” Legislation Leading to More Guns & Violence on Denver Streets
Dr. Terry Hildebrandt is in the news again! In this article, he talks about how irresponsible policies and legislation are exacerbating crime and illegal camping in Denver.
In addition to harmful policies, the current M.O. is for authorities to offer treatment services and shelter to the unhoused living in tents (which is almost universally declines) rather than insist on it - especially for people suffering from addiction and/or severe mental illness.
Denver can find shelter for everyone on the street - there are hundreds of beds available every night.
Hildebrandt says that “I see no excuse left to ever tolerate allowing anyone to rot on the street in an illegal tent to overdose and freeze to death. How is there any dignity for the unsheltered in allowing dangerous illegal encampments to remain?”
Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver know he’s right … Do you agree?
SOS Camps Enable Crime & Addiction
The SOS camps, run by Colorado Village Collaborative, look great on paper but they are not what they seem. Duane Peterson is a longtime Colorado resident who attended CU Boulder and is sober with no criminal record, nor has he ever been a drug user or diagnosed for a mental health condition. “These factors not only made him an outcast among the BVC residents, but also made him the target of stalking, death threats, and racial attacks - which ultimately forced him to move out for the sake of self-preservation.”
There have been numerous accounts of negligence on the part of Colorado Village Collaborative. Duane estimates he made over 50 complaints with the Denver Police Department and “Nothing was ever done”.
Dawn McNulty and the other Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are staunchly against SOS spaces. We intend to address and remove the glaring oversights and extreme safety hazards to neighborhoods populated by families with children.
Progressive Policies are Worsening Addiction and Increasing Drug Deaths
Since liberalizing drug laws 20 years ago, deaths from illicit drugs rose from 17,000 to 93,000.
“Victimology takes the trust that it is wrong for people to be victimized and distorts it by going a step further. Victimology asserts that victims are inherently good because they have been victimized. it robs individuals of their moral agency and creates double standards that frustrate any attempt to criticize their behavior. Even if they are behaving in self-destructive, antisocial ways…Such reasoning is obviously faulty. it purifies victims of all badness. But by appealing to emotion, victimology overrides reason and logic.”
“Progressives don’t trade away Fairness for victims, only for those they see as privileged. Progressive still value Fairness, but more for victims, and their progressive allies, than for everyone equally, and particularly not for people progressives view as the oppressors and victimizers…Progressives also value Authority and Loyalty for victims above everyone else.
What kind of a civilization leaves its most vulnerable people to use deadly substances and die on the streets? What kind of city regulates ice cream stores more strictly than drug dealers who kill 713 of its citizens in a single year? nd what kind of people moralize about their superior treatment of the poor, people of color, and addicts while enabling and subsidizing the conditions of their death?
Shellenberger covers all of this in his book - San Fransicko : Why Progressives Ruin Cities - In a lot more detail
What Could Be Worse than Heroin? THE NEW METH
“It’s not just that meth causes homelessness. It also perpetuates it…you start using meth because it’s dirt cheap and so available. And pretty soon you can’t get out of it. It prevents you from leaving homelessness as much as it creates homelessness.”
A cheaper and far more potent strain of meth from Mexico has been flooding the US, a synthetic-chemical cocktail so potent it can send many users into rapid psychosis.
“And that’s where the tents come in. A tent is a perfect housing for someone who believes the entire world is a threat - it’s private and portable. Conversely, if you’re in that mindset, the very last place you wanna be is in a homeless shelter.”
This new type of meth is fueling the homelessness crisis in Denver as well.
Union Station Sweep…It’s a Start
On February 23, 2022 the Denver Police Department executed a major sweep of the area. At least 42 individuals were arrested, most of the offenses were drug-related.
On December 3, 2021, Mayor Hancock responded to the outcries of RTD passengers and groups like ours and asserted that “Illegal drug use, public urination and unsafe loitering must not be allowed to continue. Union Station is an important public transit and commercial space and we will redouble our efforts to ensure it is clean and safe (…maybe he visited safeandcleandenver.com) for all of those who use and enjoy it.
Keep up the good work Denver Police Department!!
…Now only if our judges and DA, Beth McCann would keep these criminals (some felons) in jail.
Drugs, Alcohol Chaos and Death Rampant in Denver Homeless Housing
According to David Heitz, “the use and sale of illegal drugs is rampant in Denver homeless housing. It jeopardizes people who became sober while in jail or the state mental hospital.”
He also says that most homeless housing buildings have several drug dealers living in them with meth, heroin and crack readily available.
People in David’s building have died of drugs and alcohol and often cause violent disturbances.
Housing first = Housing fiasco.
We’re in the News!
Dr. Terry Hildebrandt and the other Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are fed up with the increase in crime, violence and open drug use in the city.
Dr. Hildebrandt says that “if we had folks wandering streets as Alzheimer’s patients getting run over by cars, we would never allow that. However, some of the addicts I’ve experienced right here, outside my front door clearly can’t make good decisions. I think it’s (an) unethical situation to allow people to freeze to death and kill themselves in the street.”
Dr. Hildebrandt and the other members of Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are focused on enacting tougher drug laws on a state wide basis along with more on-demand, in-patient mental health and substance abuse treatment centers. We are pushing for zero tolerance of urban camping.
Homeless Campus - East Denver
East of Denver, sits an empty campus with seven dormitories, 500 beds, a cafeteria, gym and a football field. Gov. Jared Polis has big plans for this space: a state-owned facility that could house hundred of people who are homeless and living on the streets.
Gov. Polis envisions an all-encompassing recovery center with temporary housing, drug treatment and job-training programs.
Let’s support Gov. Polis in this vision!
Colorado Worst in Nation for Car Theft
Colorado is the worst state in the country for auto theft. Denver Police Department Chief Paul Pazen suggests that such crimes were rising in part because perpetrators have been getting off easy.
On average, in 2021, 75 vehicles were stone each day in the Denver metro area.
97% of the people who have been arrested in the last three years for auto theft have multiple arrests for auto theft.
“People that committed ‘property crimes’ like vehicle theft, were admitted to the jail. They were released right back out to continue doing what the do,” Sergeant Troy Kessler with Colorado State Patrol said.
As a stark contrast - the Vail Police Department is warning skiers and riders that borrowing a friends ski pass will result in a maximum fine of up to $999 and/or 180 days in jail. source: https://snowbrains.com/jail-for-using-someone-elses-vail-pass/
A Must Read: The New Meth
“Remarkably, meth rarely comes up in city discussions on homelessness, or in newspaper articles about it. Mitchell called it “the elephant in the room”—nobody wants to talk about it, he said. “There’s a desire not to stigmatize the homeless as drug users.” Policy makers and advocates instead prefer to focus on L.A.’s cost of housing, which is very high but hardly relevant to people rendered psychotic and unemployable by methamphetamine.”
"Tents themselves seem to play a role in this phenomenon. Tents protect many homeless people from the elements. But tents and the new meth seem made for each other. With a tent, the user can retreat not just mentally from the world but physically. Encampments provide a community for users, creating the kinds of environmental cues that the USC psychologist Wendy Wood finds crucial in forming and maintaining habits. They are often places where addicts flee from treatment, where they can find approval for their meth use."
“There is no central villain in the P2P-meth story—no Purdue Pharma, no dominant cartel. There’s no single entity to target, either. So the issue is often enveloped in a willful myopia. Advocates for homeless people seem reluctant to speak out about the drug, for fear that the downtrodden will be blamed for their troubles.”
At last, folks have started to acknowledge what neighbors have known and seen for the last three years. The tent cities in Denver are not folks "one paycheck away" from losing their homes". They are not families or seniors. These tent cities are meth towns - filled with people who are deep in a very dangerous addiction.