Mayor Plans Increased Policing Around Union Station, Three Other Areas

“We are bringing the precision policing model to Union Station,” Hancock said during a February 3 press conference. “We will not play politics with this challenge of crime. This isn’t a Democratic or a Republican issue. It’s an issue that affects everyone, and we must address it squarely and without regard to politics.”

Crime has been an issue in the area for months, especially in the bus terminal corridor leading to Union Station. Conditions there led the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001 to announce on December 1: “We have the legal right to refuse to work in the UNSAFE WORKING CONDITIONS at Denver Union Station…. THIS IS NOT A GAME OR A PLOY. If we don’t take action to secure our safety, we may die waiting for RTD to do it for us.”

During the February 3 press conference, Hancock suggested that the city is already enforcing the law more heavily at Union Station, displaying a powerpoint slide showing that law enforcement has made 522 arrests in Union Station and the downtown area since November.

And while the DPD made 45 total arrests at Union Station in January 2021, police made 287 arrests there this past January.

“Our focus is on the individuals that are causing the most harm,” said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen. “Individuals that are selling fentanyl, in particular….Our primary focus is trying to get the dealers off the streets. Now, with recent legislation, the dealers have changed their tactics. They’re carrying just under four grams of fentanyl. In our efforts to hold these folks that are dealing a deadly substance accountable, we’ll continue to focus our efforts there. We’ll continue to have outreach workers and support like the substance use navigation team to continue to help people connect to resources.”

The “recent legislation” to which Pazen referred was a law passed in 2019 by the Colorado Legislature to de-felonize possession charges for Schedule I and II drugs, including fentanyl. So long as someone possesses fewer than four grams of such drugs for personal use, they can now only be charged with a misdemeanor in Colorado. At the time, proponents of the bill asserted that the state can’t simply arrest its way out of drug addiction issues.

Pazen added: “There were warrant arrests that have taken place in the Union Station corridor area as well as trespassing offenses. Folks that were barred through area restriction from the location and were subsequently held accountable for being in a location that by order they were expressly prohibited from.”

After the press conference, Hancock’s office released its “2022 Public Safety Action Plan,” which noted that the Denver Police Department is working with RTD, the transit union, businesses and residents of the Union Station area to develop that plan.

Meanwhile, the Denver Police Department will increase policing in three more “hot spots,” as well as the five that the DPD began targeting in May 2021. The three new spots, where the city has identified prevalent issues such as shootings, are the general vicinities of West 14th Avenue and Federal Boulevard, West Mississippi Avenue and South Lipan Street, and East Dartmouth Avenue and Havana Street. The five identified last May were around Federal and West Alameda Avenue, Colfax Avenue and Broadway into LoDo, East Colfax and Yosemite Street, East 47th Avenue and Peoria Street, and Martin Luther King Boulevard and Holly Street.

“Data showed us in 2020 that five hotspots accounted for 49 percent of shootings and 26 percent of the homicides in our city,” Pazen said. “We were able to have dramatic decreases in four of the five hotspots.”

The one “hot spot” that didn’t see a decrease in shootings despite being targeted by cops? Aggravated assault shootings actually went from 42 in 2020 to 45 in 2021 in the area at Colfax and Broadway stretching into LoDo…right by Union Station.

This story has been updated to include statistics regarding arrests at Union Station in January 2021 and last month.