DENVER (KDVR) — The random crime-spree killing of Shmuel Silverberg shook Denver’s Jewish community. Sadly, the neighborhood where the murder took place is not exactly the city’s safest haven.
Police confirmed that 18-year-old Shmuel Silverberg was chased inside Yeshiva Toras Chaim the night he was shot and killed. Four of the five young men responsible have been caught and are now being held without bond.
West Colfax doesn’t have the crime rates of Denver’s city core neighborhoods, but it still has the 10th highest violent crime rate of Denver’s 78 statistical neighborhoods in 2021.
The Denver Police Department compares crimes among Denver’s neighborhoods by square mile rather than by population. Neighborhood populations are so porous that a square mile comparison is likely a more accurate representation.
City core neighborhoods typically have the highest property and violent crime rates in Denver. This is true no matter what timeframe – in any time in recent memory, Central Business District, Five Points, Union Station, Civic Center and Capitol Hill are the city’s highest-crime neighborhoods.
Farther-flung neighborhoods, however, compete. East Colfax, Montbello and West Colfax round out the city’s top 10 list for 2021’s most violent crime concentrations of homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies.
So far in 2021, West Colfax has clocked just under 70 violent crimes per square mile.
This is still considerably less than the city core neighborhoods. Denver’s Central Business District has just over 300 homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies per square mile.
West Colfax, though, is still the 10th-highest violent crime concentration, about on par with gangland East Colfax on the other end of the city.
The map changes somewhat if you rank raw violent crime totals, but West Colfax’s place in the rankings does not change markedly.
Denver’s largest neighborhoods take the top spots when comparing raw totals, though small city center neighborhoods are still in the top. Five Points has more violent crime than any other neighborhood, with almost 200 throughout 2021.
West Colfax’s total is less than half that – only 69 through 2021 – but that still puts the neighborhood in the 13th-highest violent crime spot.