Here’s Where Homicides Go Unsolved In Denver

DENVER, CO – More than half of the homicides in America’s 50 largest cities went unsolved over the past 10 years, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. The Post’s analysis of 52,000 criminal homicides identified zones within cities where there were more than eight homicides but the arrest rate was less than 30 percent.

In Denver, 54 percent of homicides tracked over the past decade went unsolved, according to the analysis.

According to the Post’s data, there were 312 homicides in Denver between 2007 and 2017 and 46 percent of these homicides resulted in an arrest. The Post found two zones in Denver where the arrest rate was less than 30 percent. One was in the RiNo and the other in the city’s Union Station/LoDo neighborhood.

A map compiled by The Post also showed areas where fewer than 1 in 3 homicides resulted in an arrest. Nationally, the overall average arrest rate for these areas was 14 percent.

While the majority of homicide victims in Denver (112) were black, the arrest rates were highest in cases where the victims were white, according to the Post’s findings. That was consistent with the trend identified by the Post nationally. The Post found that in 44 of the 47 cities where a victim’s race was reliably recorded, a white victim’s homicide resulted in an arrest more often than a minority victim’s homicide.

The rate of unsolved homicides was the worst for cases where the victim was Hispanic, the data showed: Of the 93 cases where victims were Hispanic, 37, or 39 percent, of the cases were closed by an arrest. Of the 112 case where the victim was black, 45, or 40 percent, of the cases were closed with an arrest. Of the 94 cases where victims were white, 51, or 54 percent, of those cases were solved with an arrest.

“The location doesn’t make as much of a difference as who the players are,” Lt. Matt Clark of the Denver Police told the Washington Post in May. He said an "uptick of gang violence in 2015," focused the DPD on a renewed focus on "preventing and solving homicides."

Some of the data in the Post article appears not to count homicides that were tried in other jurisdictions. For example, the January, 2017 death of Loveland RTD guard Scott Von Lanken, is reported as a homicide which was closed with no arrest. But Joshua Cummings, 38, was arrested, charged and sentenced to life prison without parole for the execution-style murder. Another example is the gang-style shooting homicides of Sergio Evelyn-Moe, 28, and Travis Sanders, 34 Sept. 22, 2015 at a car wash in Five Points. That case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Denver, and a federal judge convicted Dedric Delaine Mayfield for the shooting deaths and sentenced him to more than four years in prison.

If you'd like to find about more about local cold cases, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's Cold Case file website for the Denver Police Department lists 98 cases closed without an arrest between 2007-2013, the latest date a a case is recorded.

Other findings from the Post’s analysis include:

• 34 of the 50 cities analyzed have a lower homicide arrest rate now compared to a decade ago
• Killings have increased in 17 cities over the past decade and police now make fewer arrests in these cities
• An arrest was made in 63 percent of homicides of white victims compared with 48 percent of Latino victims and 46 percent of black victims
• Almost all the low-arrest zones are home primarily to low-income black residents

Read the full analysis from The Post here.