For generations, Aurora and Denver residents have been lamenting the scourge of gun violence among its teenagers and young adults, each year pledging to address it, and making little or no progress.
Months of increasing gun violence in the region culminated in so many shootings over the last weekend that the tragedies were startling even among those who felt they were beyond being shocked.
“We average maybe five or six homicides a year,” said Commerce City Police Department spokesperson Joanna Small. “We’re now talking about four homicides and a person in critical condition in 39 hours.” She called it “an incredibly violent weekend.”
Just coming off an episode of a stolen car of teenagers shooting at Aurora police, and then leading them on a chase across the eastern metroplex, Aurora tallied two more shootings over the weekend that left one person dead.
A dispute at an East Colfax Aurora nightclub parking lot turned deadly early Sunday when one person was fatally wounded and another person was injured, police said.
Miles away, one man was gravely injured by gunfire and another stabbed after an apartment parking lot party in northwest Aurora turned violent early Sunday, police said.
“Several people were gathered in the parking lot when there was an argument that became physical,” police said in a statement. “One man sustained multiple gunshot wounds.”
There have been two additional Aurora shootings this week.
Also this week, police announced arrests in a case earlier this summer where a 17-year-old girl is accused of fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl and injuring two other teen girls during a party at a central Aurora park area.
Aurora reports about 40 shooting deaths each year. Denver almost twice that. And year there are far more shooting injuries.
Aurora and Denver are both rudderless in navigating the complex causes of rampant youth violence and finding solutions to address and end it.
Denver and Aurora city councils have both become quagmires of political inertia on a bevy of critical matters: police reform, homelessness, affordable housing, poverty and increasing crime and violence.
Denver programs are essentially regularly reinvented and then stall. Aurora’s conservative city council majority is fixated on past “tough love” and “get tough on crime” policies that are tried and true for being ineffective at reducing crime, and homelessness.
Aurora has become a dysfunctional abyss for new ideas and momentum, often polarized by inter-animosity and partisan politics.
The victims of this political dysfunction are the millions of people who live in the greater metro area, subject to the whims of these two cities because of their sheer size and the momentum they create, or resist.
Aurora, Denver and the rest of the region can’t wait for good sense to return and improve the situation among elected local government leaders. The growing incidence of gun violence is dire and must be addressed now in ways these governments won’t rise to.
This is a problem that goes far beyond city borders and crosses every political line. A joint effort could provide real and widespread results.
We’ve pitched this before and believe more than ever, it could work. Aurora and Denver should create a select a commission addressing youth violence, as well as homelessness.
Such a commission, relatively small and limited in time and scope, could rise above the apparently inescapable politics to provide meaningful answers for a region desperate for action.
The commission would be charged with only two goals: providing an understanding of why gun violence has become so prevalent in the region, and offering a short list of immediate and long-range ways to effectively address the problems that are identified.
While state elected officials should be part of the commission, they must be legislative representatives that live in the region, accountable to local constituents.
There are dozens of Denver and Aurora community activists and leaders who could provide targeted, limited and timely momentum to examine the scope of the problem and offer a handful of short-term and long-term possibilities.
Lives are being shattered and lost nearly every day leaders from these two critical communities put off providing meaningful and effective solutions. Don’t wait any longer.
Funny that you didn’t mention the role of the state legislature. After all, they have implemented plenty of laws that made the weapons used in these killings illegal. They also neutered the police forces of the state. Obviously, their efforts have been ineffective. You also didn’t mention parents, but somehow you feel that filling a room with activists will solve the problem. Good luck.
😆 🤣 😂 Yeah, the experts at the leftist rag known as the Sentinel have all the answers because they are full of shi…I mean expertise.
As with many issues, there is no real, viable answer to this situation. People like to kill other people and when they are young, it is especially attractive. Sometimes they grow out of it and move on to other, more profitable pursuits. Because of stupidity (usually) they often stick with it. I remember a young man in Aurora, almost 55 years ago, that burned his girlfriend’s sleeping parents alive in their home. I am curious if he even thought about the incident in all his years of incarceration. I seriously doubt it.
Colorado needs to make community safety Priority #1. Forget about yet more studies and half-baked programs. Just give long sentences to anyone that possessed a gun while committing a criminal act. This clear consequence would quickly make our streets and children safer.
I learned many things from a long career in law enforcement. Whatever I learned in the way of better policing stood no chance in the face of police and community politics. If the legislature had not destroyed policing in Colorado, we would still be faced with the incompetence and lack of concern from the top of police leadership. There are better ways to do police work. Those will not be put into action. I suggested to City Council that they put together those who wanted to be chief and those who had ideas in a public meeting. Let the public actually hear real ideas and let the police politicians be forced to talk in detail instead of the same glittering generalities they always feed the public.
Any real attempt to curb youth violence would need to be multi pronged and use a wide variety of approaches. It includes much in the way of youth programs and parental involvement but also includes a significant concerted and coordinated law enforcement approach from neighborhood policing to real prosecution. I mean real neighborhood policing where officers have the time and the flexibility to devote all of their efforts to getting to know the people and to actually deal with their problems. I don’t mean the community policing that police chiefs push. They only understand token efforts where we pacify people by having meetings and pretending to care about their problems while actually doing little to concentrate on their problems. Chiefs are generally political animals who are always pushed to do low cost policing with only minimal service. They are gate keepers who keep the status quo and have no long range plans. They recycle the same tired strategies without regard to the actual problems in the community.
Considering that the legislature has disabled police work in Colorado in so many ways that the public cannot be expected to understand, it is doubtful that the legislature will be of any help.
It is very doubtful that any commission, especially one filled with activists will come up with a balanced or effective plan. The activists don’t want minor laws enforced. The result is real damage to the minority community. Theft means that stores will cease to exist in minority areas. Notice that juveniles are shooting at officers attempting a stop for a traffic offense. That tells you who is drifting around fully armed and dangerous. Minor stops are what keep people from thinking that they can do whatever they want without fear of being caught in illegal and dangerous conduct. Today, you can drive with expired or no plates in your stolen car. You can use that anonymous vehicle to smash into a store and commit a burglary or to drive by and shoot people. You can drive like a fool. Our legislature has gotten rid of thousands of experienced officers only to be replaced with hastily trained officers who have been taught that it is too risky to actually stop people who appear to be involved in any type of minor crime. Fewer officers who actually do anything. The safest thing to do now is to simply respond to the shootings where it is understood that you may have to use force. It is a great time for lazy officers who simply would like some excitement. Proactive and community policing are dead. It is doubtful that any government body filled with politicians ignorant of facts will come up with anything other than window dressing.
In reality, it isn’t only “activists” that don’t want laws enforced, it’s your friends and neighbors that are committing crimes that don’t you want a light shined on them. I always remember the advice of a business mentor many years ago: “It’s only a crime if they catch you” I don’t think he had only white-collar crime in mind when he gave me this advice 50 years ago.
I often wonder what is going on behind the doors of the very large and nice homes in my secluded neighborhood. A murder, a rape, the molestation of a child by a parent.
I don’t think it’s minor stops that keep people from doing what they want, I think it’s a common contempt for you and what you do. Don’t be mistaken, I am not talking about someone who despises the police because they fear being caught, I am talking about someone who thinks you are a parasite, living on the public dole. This attitude isn’t confined to a minority community. These are the people that you once thought you could count on. They come in all colors, and they may live next door to you. As always, watch your back.
I watched my back for many years. I am not worried about me. It is the public and my grandchildren who have to worry. Paraphrasing “All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing”