Commerce City struggling when looking at crime compared to neighboring cities

While some on Commerce City’s City Council are obsessed with things like gas stations, grocery carts, Suncor and residential development, residents of our beleaguered city are facing the daily reality that it is becoming increasingly more dangerous to live here.

Commerce City’s well-known crime problem is not just anecdotal. The numbers display very clearly what everyone – save a few on City Council – already knows; that crime is a growing problem with a severity that is unique to our community.

The figures, taken from the official data compiled by the state, are stark and don’t lie. The rate of violent crime in Commerce City has been on an upward trend since at least 2020. Last year, Commerce City recorded 620 violent crimes, comprising murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robbery.

But the reality is clearly revealed when those raw numbers are compared to neighboring jurisdictions. Let’s consider the cities of Westminster, Thornton, Northglenn, and Brighton.

Looking first at the trends in the violent crime rate, we see that, unlike Commerce City, Westminster and Northglenn have experienced a significant and steady decrease over the last five years. Thornton has seen a somewhat more gradual downward trend, and Brighton has experienced a slight uptick. But a closer look at the numbers shows just how disproportionately dangerous Commerce City is compared to its neighbors.

As noted above, Commerce City had 620 violent crimes reported for 2024. Westminster had 396; Thornton 457; Northglenn 186; and Brighton 239.

But even those numbers don’t fully illustrate the enormity of Commerce City’s crime problem. That’s exposed when you factor in each city’s population: using 2023 numbers for all, Commerce City has 68,345 residents; Westminster 114,875; Thornton 144,922; Northglenn 38,164, and Brighton 42,400.

So, the better illustration is achieved when you look at the figures on the basis of violent crimes committed per 1,000 residents.

Ready? Westminster’s rate of violent crime per 1,000 people in 2024 is 3.4; Thornton, 3.1; Northglenn, 4.8; Brighton 5.6.

Commerce City? 9.1.

Yes, that is roughly double the rate of Northglenn and Brighton, and three times the rate of more populous Westminster and Thornton. In fact, Commerce City violent crime rate is more comparable to that of Denver and Aurora, Big cities with Big City problems, both of which recorded a violent crime rate only marginally higher than Commerce City’s last year, at about 10 per 1,000 residents.

And it actually gets worse, when you dig in a bit more: While the rate of aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robbery have been steadily going up here, they have actually been decreasing Denver and Aurora. And using this year’s data, as of April first Aurora’s violent crime rate per 1,000 people of 2.58 is in fact a bit less than Commerce City’s rate of 2.86.

And no, this is not a problem with Commerce City’s police department. The same data show that our overworked police are achieving a comparable clearance rate to like jurisdictions, despite an obviously higher workload.

This is much more a policy problem, one which lands at the feet of the Mayor and those on City Council who appear fully committed to getting sidetracked by ideological fantasies at the expense of the dereliction of their duty to keep their constituents safe.