Denver Cop's Uncensored Blasts at LoDo Crime, Police Reform and More

In the age of George Floyd, police officers speaking in public tend to be extremely careful to avoid controversial subjects. But not Denver Police Department Lieutenant Sean Faris.

The decorated DPD veteran, who's been on the job for more than three decades and won the agency's Medal of Valor for his actions in a 2014 bank robbery, was among the guests at an October 28 virtual meeting of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association, and his commentary was unexpectedly blunt. He spoke frankly about crime in LoDo and the Union Station neighborhood while ripping multiple police-reform measures passed by the Colorado General Assembly in recent years, including Senate Bill 217, which he blamed in part for the department's difficulties in attracting new recruits. The legislation, which mandated body cameras and set a timeline for the release of footage capturing alleged excessive-force actions, "held us all to an unreasonable standard," he argued.

Faris began his presentation with crime statistics for District 6, which encompasses LoDo and the Union Station neighborhood, where violence flared over the summer, particularly along Blake Street and other parts of LoDo. He acknowledged that the three-year average for both crimes against persons and property crimes were up in this part of the city, but focused on comparing numbers from the most recent 28-day period to the previous four weeks to demonstrate that the DPD's strategy of "redeploying officers for violence mitigation" in the area is bearing fruit. He noted that aggravated assaults using guns were down 26 percent, sex offenses slipped by 28 percent, and both homicides and assaults involving weapons other than firearms were holding steady. And while burglary saw a 4.4 percent increase and criminal mischief tied to property climbed 9.1 percent, larcenies, automobile thefts and offenses involving graffiti fell substantially.

Regarding LoDo violence around "bar nightlife," Faris revealed that on August 20, after a number of shocking acts, including "a pretty dramatic gangster shooting, when five people were shot and one died," the department "saturated the area" with undercover detectives "looking for people with firearms. The focus was on gang members." Through this past weekend, officers had recovered "43 unlawful firearms" and made 98 arrests, he said, highlighting an incident on October 16 prompted by a call about "individuals passing around a rifle in a car." The responding cops located the vehicle, removed the occupants at gunpoint, and subsequently discovered an illicit AR-15 with a shortened barrel and a fully loaded magazine in addition to a 9mm handgun. That same evening, a vehicle "loaded with gang members, dressed in gang attire" was stopped for a traffic violation but "eluded the officers." The car was then tracked by a helicopter, and after it stopped on the outskirts of downtown, cops on the ground moved in. They found "a shortened-barrel shotgun and forty suspected Fentanyl pills," he said, and discovered that one of the people inside "had a warrant out of Aurora for a prior shooting."

Two other hot spots identified by Faris were Union Station itself, as well as the intersection of 16th and Champa, where officers have been redeployed in order to make "qualify-of-life" arrests in response to complaints about "open-air drug issues, whether utilizing the drugs or selling the drugs, public urination — doing illegal things out in the open." On October 28, he added, the department's 16th Street Mall unit "located individuals using narcotics on the outskirts of Union Station. One person tried to run, and they had to tackle him," after which it was discovered that he was wanted on an active felony warrant. A similar situation followed an arrest of a man "on the Millennium Bridge open-air injecting"; he had violated his parole. Faris noted that these two locations are attracting "parolees hanging out involved in the drug trade and drug use"; he theorized that the corner on Champa draws people who are homeless because it's near public restrooms and a 7-Eleven with inexpensive food.

In further discussion of what Faris shorthanded as "the homeless situation," he said that on the morning of October 28, the department conducted "our 103rd large encampment removal operation of the year," this one on the 2000 block of Welton Street. He added that the DPD has enacted a "permanent" ban on encampments "from Welton Street to Broadway to Park Avenue" because "every time we remove one, they continue to come back. But the permanent posting means we don't have to go through all the steps" that were previously required. "We can cite these individuals and have them move along. We're excited by that."

Still, the DPD will continue to face challenges because "staffing has become an issue for us," Faris noted. "We're probably down 200 police officers at this point. We're authorized to hire, but we just can't keep our academies filled." The DPD had hoped to bring on 52 officers from a recent academy class, but only wound up with about twenty. "One thing we won't do is lower our standards," Faris noted. "I'd rather have a twenty-officer class than forty officers who don't meet our standards."

Next, Faris took questions from the LoDo residents, and many of his answers focused on politics. "Last year, I think our biggest problem in Colorado related to drugs was the state legislature's decision to make possession of four grams or less a misdemeanor," he said. "It had always been a felony, ever since I was a baby cop, but now four grams or less of cocaine, Fentanyl and heroin is a misdemeanor. Typically, we issue a summons and release them from the scene, as opposed to taking them to jail," whereas in the past, "a penitentiary sentence was held over their head." As a result, "drug dealers are carrying four grams or less on them so they can say it's just for personal use. That makes it difficult to build a case."

Another concern "goes back two years ago, to another state legislature decision" that eliminated cash bail for minor offenses, he said, then discussed a series of episodes on Tuesday, October 26. That's when he and some of his colleagues were "flagged down for a disturbance at 16th and Curtis" involving a man who was "out of his mind. It was kind of typical of what we see in this homeless, mental-health crowd that uses a lot of drugs." They busted the man, but he was back on the streets two hours later and committed another crime for which he was also set free — at which point he went on to break laws during two more incidents. "We took him to jail for the fourth time in an eighteen-hour period," Faris added. "That's the most recent, best example of why a catch-and-release program simply doesn't work." These laws were put in place by "legislation that was not a vote of the people," he noted. "It was done by a committee of the state legislature. That's what I disliked about it."

A follow-up query about the staffing gap prompted Faris to discuss "all the riots" last year, as well as the Defund the Police movement. "Going through that is unlike anything I've had to deal with in my 31-year career," he said. "A lot of officers left because of that. It was very difficult, very problematic. It's not the profession that it once was prior to last year. I think the tide is turning, and the bulk of the citizens support us. Nobody wants to defund the police. But it's very hard, and it's become more dangerous."

As a result, he concluded, it's no wonder "we don't have enough individuals who want to be police officers."