DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado’s violent crime has been lessening through the beginning of 2022, but the trend is both young and sporadic.
The update to a Denver triple homicide on Monday and several weekend shootings raises the specter of violent crime once more. Violent crime rates had been steadily rising for a decade before peaking in the last two years.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation data shows crime could be improving, depending on the location and what the summer holds.
Colorado’s total number of monthly violent crimes had been trending upward for about 10 years. August 2021 was the single most violent month in Colorado history, with more than 3,000 rapes, murders, aggravated assaults and robberies.
Since then, numbers have shrunk. Both February and March have seen less violent crime statewide than any month since before the COVID pandemic.
Typically, violence spikes in summer. It remains to be seen what the summer of 2022’s crime trends will reveal.
Location is also a factor in violence trends. Some cities are seeing less violent crime and others aren’t.
Violent crime in Denver peaked in the summer of 2020 with 726 crimes. No quarter has seen the same number of violent crimes since. The first three months of 2022 experienced fewer violent crimes in Denver than any quarter since 2016.
In contrast, Aurora’s violence has been getting worse. The first quarter of 2022 set a new record for the city’s violent crimes with 1,005.