Submitted by Mickey Greenberg, Safety Chair for WDCA
CAB (Community Advisory Board) Meeting at DPD District 3 – 6 Nov 24
CRO (Community Resource Officers)
- Matt Grimsley is no longer one of our two CRO’s, he left to take a position as an SRO (School Resource Officer)
- Officer John Silva moved from district 4 to join District 3 as a new CRO. His contact info is silva@denvergov.org, 720-913-1218. It has not been decided yet if he will be joining Antonio “Tony” Pacheco in our Sector 2, whose contact info is antonio.pacheco@denvergov.org, 720-913-1245
WellPower Crisis Intervention Response Unit (CIRU)
- The featured speaker at the meeting was Emerald Mable, a licensed Clinician and co-responder in District 3
- WellPower has evolved out of Mental Health Services of Denver
- She is one of the four clinicians assigned to District 3 (currently there are only two with two open positions) to ride along with patrol offices to assist in welfare calls.
- Clinicians ride along two shifts a day, not at night. District 3 averages seven calls per day.
- The effort parallels the STAR program where a clinician, not necessarily a licensed-level one, rides with a paramedic in an ambulance. STAR is focused on less hazardous cases.
Crime
- In our Precinct 322 YTD property crime is down 26.8%, person crime is up 12.7% (primarily domestic violence and incidents at the GWHS), and public crime is up 16.1%.
- Two major factors in recent crimes have been open garage doors and keys left in cars.
- With the approaching holidays there is a threat of porch pirates, so be sure not to leave packages at your door, have a neighbor pick them up or use a secure drop-off box.
- Package theft from vehicles in shopping malls is an issue. Thieves watch people stashing purchases in their vehicles before going back in to shop and then target those vehicles. If you want to keep packages in your car, move it to another location before going back to shop.
- Guns are a major concern, the city voted for a new tax on legal purchases, but criminals don’t buy legal guns, they steal them from cars and homes. Don’t leave firearms in your car, there are new state laws on this. Free gun locks are available at the District 3 front desk, no questions asked.
- The Cedar Run Apartments at 800 Oneida St at Leetsdale have been designated a PNI (Place Network Investigation) site and the city is taking a holistic approach to improving the situation. New lighting, door locks, and education programs are underway involving numerous city departments. There are 12 buildings and 384 apartment units. Police are actively involved, our Lt Sandoval, the night shift supervisor, is there nightly. While there are “new comer” tenants living there, it is not a Venezuelan gang center despite what some social media sites may say. The ACT (Anti-Crime Task Force) follows the movement of crime cells and is focused on the apartments to make sure that police actions do not simply cause crime cells to just relocate to other locations which guides how the enforcement actions are used. Lt Sandoval was appreciative of how residents of Winston Downs keep a close eye on things and report problems, something that residents south of the complex are not as diligent about.
- License plate readers, Flock cameras, are being used primarily to catch stolen vehicles. The city has 95 of them installed and plans to add 16 more. Cherry Creek North has also purchased their own cameras which are tied into the system. Since this May police used the system to make 142 arrests and recover 99 stolen vehicles.
- Expired license plates are being targeted in a special campaign during the month of November. There is a $95 fine on top of registration costs. About time!
- DPD has added 27 e-bikes for use in patrol and at sporting events and other large-scale events. Four bikes are assigned to District 3. The bikes were purchased by CASR, Climate Action sustainability & Resiliency) Office. These are nice $4,000 Class 1 (pedal assist only) bikes, but my editorial comment is that they are not engineered specifically for police use.
Free Safety Resource
- Friday, Nov 22nd at Chennai Park at S Quebec and E Iowa from 11:00am to 1:00pm District 3 is doing free bike and Denver Track registration and license plate screws.