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Data shows homicide rate in Denver is the lowest in a little more than a decade

Denver7 sat down with DPD Chief Ron Thomas to discuss the decrease and the strategies the department and its officers say have helped get to this point
Data shows year-to-date homicide numbers in Denver have steadily decreased for a third year in a row
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DENVER — The number of homicides in Denver from January 1 to today have shown a steady decrease for the third year in a row, and are the lowest they've been in more than a decade, according to data from the Denver Police Department.

On Thursday, Denver7 sat down with Denver's chief of police Ron Thomas to discuss the decrease and the strategies the department and its officers say have helped get the Mile High City to this point.

"Obviously we're doing very well," Chief Thomas said. "I'm happy to see that."

Data from the Denver Police Department shows the number of homicides so far in 2025 are the third lowest in more than 20 years, at 20 homicides year-to-date. The only two years that saw a lower rate, during the same time period, were 2010 with 19 homicides and 2014, when there were 14 homicides.

"I think there are a number of things that I would credit our success to," Chief Thomas said. "We've employed a number of strategies in some of our hotspots, some of our, you know, our violent crime hotspots."

"What you'll see is a lot of places that have been neglected by the city, places with poor infrastructure and things like that, and so as a city, we'll step in and we'll make infrastructure improvements, improve lighting, cameras, economic development, helping people in those areas have more vibrant businesses and things like that, activation and things like that," Chief Thomas added. "I really call it more of an investment strategy than an enforcement strategy, because instead, we're able to do this without having more police contacts."

Chief Thomas also told Denver7 a big part of his department's strategy to decrease homicides has been working with community advocates.

"I really credit a lot of our success recently to a lot of the advocates like with Students Demand Action. I think, they have done a lot of work at the capitol, working on a lot of legislation to make it safer. A lot of legislation as it relates to safe storage, so it's less likely the guns that are stolen, [or] fall into the wrong hands," he said. "Obviously, we have done some great work with some community advocates, like Struggle of Love, where they're doing violence mitigation, so that one shooting doesn't turn into multiple shootings because of a gang conflict or something like that."

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Malcolm Riley and James Murphy both work with the Struggle of Love Foundation, echoing the police chief's message on what their goals are.

"When I say stop the violence, that means getting into the streets, talking to these kids, using our resources that are available to us, and give access to youth, that they can get in and use these same resources to build — just giving them options," Murphy said.

"We're the people who, when it happens, we go knock on your door afterwards. We don't want to know why it happened. We want to see what we can do to see what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen again," Riley added. "We want to make sure your family don't need or want for anything so you don't have to make bad decisions. We're here to basically, again, just provide love the way it should look, whether that's tough love, real love, or just missing love."

Riley told Denver7 the number of young people and adults Struggle of Love has contacted has increased, which he and Murphy see as a positive.

"Now that we see the change, and they recognize it, they want to be a part of it," Riley told Denver7. "Now you have the kids last year, whose parents were sagging, talking all the tough stuff, saying, 'Hey, when's the next event? We want to help.'"

Data shows year-to-date homicide numbers in Denver have steadily decreased for a third year in a row

Chief Thomas also spoke with Denver7 about the department's clearance rate on homicides, which is just the rate at which those cases are being cleared. He said so far this year, it's close to 80%.

"It is probably one of the higher clearance rates in the country," he said. "I think that that is a testament, I think, to public trust as well. I think that one of the reasons why our clearance rate is so high, not only do we have some fantastic investigators and officers on the scene that are collecting evidence and things like that, we have tools available to us, like license plate readers and other evidentiary tools, things to collect evidence, but I think people are willing to come forward and give information and help us solve these crimes."

While Chief Thomas said he was excited about where the city stands so far in homicides, he admitted there is more work to be done.

"I understand that, that there's a perception issue. That's something that I think I'm responsible for as well, to address the perception of crime," he said. "The mayor and I both recognize that, and there are some strategies that we're employing to adjust that perception and make it match the reality."

"We can always learn. I think we can always do things better again," he added. "I think, you know, we were slow to understand why the perception didn't match the reality, and so I think learning how to impact those things that impact people's perceptions, and addressing those so that not only do the numbers suggest that it's safe here, but people just feel safe."


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