In Denver, homicides have increased 23.1% and shootings have increased 62.8% this year, compared to the city’s three-year average. In an effort to contain the spike, the city’s law enforcement are launching a new policing strategy centered on community collaboration and crime prevention in the city’s most violent areas.

Mayor Michael Hancock announced the plan Monday, calling it the public safety portion of Denver’s COVID-19 recovery strategy.

“Cities across the country are seeing higher levels of crime as we emerge from the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis that has followed,” Hancock said. “It is excruciatingly obvious that police cannot just be reactive.”

Of violent crime committed in the city, a plurality is happening in five small areas. These five crime hot spots, making up only 1.56% of Denver’s landmass, accounted for 49% of the city’s nonfatal shootings and 26.1% of homicides and aggravated assaults in 2020.

The city will focus its collaborative policing plan on these hot spots: South Federal Boulevard and West Alameda Avenue; Colfax Avenue and Broadway;

“Cities across the country are seeing higher levels of crime as we emerge from the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis that has followed. It is excruciatingly obvious that police cannot just be reactive.”

— Mayor Michael Hancock

East Colfax Avenue and North Yosemite Street; East 47th Avenue and North Peoria Street; and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and North Holly Street.

“( We are) committing our efforts as a city, as a community and as a police department to reduce violent crime in these areas to help these residents and business owners improve their safety,” said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen.

Pazen said the goal is to prevent crime in these areas, instead of just responding to it.

To do this, police will work with community members, local businesses, local nonprofits and mental health professionals to establish relationships with area residents.

This strategy will include city partners walking the neighborhoods to talk with residents and connect them with services they may need, including the Denver Fire Department, Office of Economic Development, Human Services, Gang Reduction Initiative and Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Police have also tracked the times and days when violent crimes most often occur in these areas and will increase high-visibility patrols during the peak times to try to deter criminal activity and disrupt crime patterns.

In collaboration with a local church, police, city officials and mental health professionals have already begun foot and bike patrols around Colfax Avenue and Broadway as a way to “improve safety without over-policing,” Pazen said.

This announcement comes the day before the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Floyd’s killing inspired national outcry and demand for police reform, even in Denver.

Though many of the calls for reform have asked for police to be defunded, or in some cases disbanded, Hancock said Monday he “will never starve our police department of the training and the resources our officers need to combat crime.”

Officials provided sparse details Monday about what they believe might have driven the sharp increases in violent crime. But Pazen has previously spoken to The Denver Gazette about his view that pandemic-fueled stress and anxiety likely contributed.

And in March, a survey by the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and County Sheriffs of Colorado suggested fewer people are choosing careers in law enforcement and officer shortages have increased, possibly results of sweeping changes to policing made by Colorado’s legislature last year and some hesitancy prompted by the pandemic to enter an inherently front-line profession.

In response to a question about whether Denver’s increased crime rates might have been related to pandemic cuts in public safety budgets, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance said in an email Denver does not do budget cuts across the board during economic downturns, but instead asked agencies to propose 7.5% reductions in their 2020 budgets and also

reduce their 2021 budgets.

According to the published budget book for 2021, the spokesperson said, proposed savings included $7 million through vacancies in sworn staff in police and fire due to smaller recruit classes, $2.3 million in reduced uniform overtime spending in safety agencies and $4.5 million from vacancies in the Sheriff Department.

Denver’s police department originally planned two classes of lateral hires — veteran officers coming from other departments — and two classes of brand-new recruits in 2020, but once the pandemic hit only had one of each.

Hancock said that he is committed to police reform and announced the creation of the Transformation and Policy Division, which will require Denver’s public safety agencies to establish and use best practices to improve operations and culture.

The division, led by Public Safety Director Murphy Robinson, aims to rebuild the community’s trust in law enforcement.

“I speak for the majority of those in law enforcement when I say we want to and we need to stand in the gap to make lasting improvements to a system that has historically maintained disproportionate bias toward people that look like me,” said Robinson, an Afro Latino man.

The division will recruit officers who reflect the demographics of the communities they serve, implement equity, diversity and inclusion training, provide monthly progress updates and accept recommendations from community members on a regular basis.

The division is considering 112 public safety recommendations released Friday by the Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety.

This is the latest step in Denver’s effort to improve policing in the city.

In recent years, Denver has established its co-responder and STAR programs, which send medics and mental health professionals with or in place of police officers when responding to low-threat situations.

Historically, Denver has also been one of the first cities in the U.S. to make changes such as requiring body-worn cameras on officers and implementing non-lethal force and de-escalation tactics.

“We will continue to work against racism and crime, and for crime prevention and reforms, always,” Hancock said. “We can and we must do both. This isn’t an either-or proposition.”