DENVER (KDVR) — Denver’s violent crime rates are not improving as much as they usually do in the winter.
A man was shot and killed Wednesday night in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, one of the most violence-prone of Denver’s 78 neighborhoods. Denver Police tweeted about the shooting just before 11:30 p.m. They said it happened near East Colfax Avenue and Clarkson Street.
Violence in Capitol Hill has been going up every one of the past five years.
In 2017, there were 86 aggravated assaults and homicides. In 2021, there were 129. This includes the most violent month on record, August 2021. The neighborhood experienced 18 violent crimes.
The violence is not cooling. The usual downturns associated with the winter months are not materializing.
Typically, Capitol Hill sees a downturn in its violent crimes as the weather gets colder beginning around October. From then through March, violent crimes are about half their summer totals.
In the winter of 2021-22, though, winter violent crime totals are higher. The total number of violent crimes October-March has gone up to 64 in 2021 from a five-year low of 42 in 2018.