Crime statistics for Denver, Colorado’s capital city, are astounding. They now put the Mile High City at the very bottom of the safest cities ranking at Neighborhood Scout. Crime in Denver is now worse than that in New York City or Chicago.
Some statistics from the Denver Police Department: Aggravated assaults, robberies, and homicides, through mid-December 2022, numbered 6,810. Three years ago, that number was 4,924. Property crimes in 2019 were 26,133. In 2022, through mid-December: 42,100.
In Denver, the murder and assault rates are twice the national rates, and three times the national rate for rapes and robberies.
Statewide the crime rate in 2022 was up more than 20 percent since 2008 — the year conservative Republican State Representative Rob Witwer announced he would not seek reelection. He saw what was coming.
The “gang of four” — four far-left millionaires — had completed their takeover of the state government. In 2004 Republicans held the governor’s office and control of both houses of the legislature. By 2007 Democrats held all three positions of power and have never looked back.
It’s now referred to as “The Colorado Model.”
As Witwer wrote in 2009:
In hindsight, what Colorado Democrats did was as simple as it was effective. First, they built a robust network of nonprofit entities to replace the Colorado Democratic party, which had been rendered obsolete by campaign-finance reform.
Second, they raised historic amounts of money from large donors to fund these entities.
Third, they developed a consistent, topical message.
Fourth, and most important, they put aside their policy differences to focus on the common goal of winning elections.
As former Democratic house majority leader Alice Madden later said, “It’s not rocket science.”
As famous Tammany Hall pol George Washington Plunkett famously said, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.” Campaign reform had greatly reduced the influence of local Coloradans in elections and the “Gang” saw their opportunity: outside money, huge amounts of outside money, could flip elections.
The “Gang” included the following:
Pat Stryker, granddaughter heiress of the Stryker Corporation;
Tim Gill, the founder of software company Quark;
Rutt Bridges, a Chevron executive who then created and sold software for the petroleum exploration industry; and
Jared Polis, a co-founder of American Information Systems (AIS), an internet access provider, and a founder of ProFlowers.
Tagging along behind the four multi-millionaires was Al Yates, former president of Colorado State University (CSU), whose university reaped millions in gifts from the four after their successful takeover of the state’s political machinery.
The gang brought with them their ideology, particularly their agenda supporting the LGBTQ movement. In 2019, Gill was the single largest individual donor to that movement in U.S. history, having personally committed more than $500 million to that cause since the early 1990s.
Polis proudly states his history as a homosexual on his Wikipedia page:
As an openly gay man, Polis has made history several times through his electoral success.
In 2008, he became the first openly gay parent elected to Congress.
In 2018, he became the first openly gay man and second openly LGBT person (after Kate Brown) elected governor of a U.S. state….
In 2021, he became the first U.S. governor in a same-sex marriage.
In 2022, he became the first openly gay man and the first U.S. governor in a same-sex marriage to be reelected.
Does being run by liberal Democrats translate into rising crime for a city? The Daily Signal reported that 27 of the top 30 most crime-ridden cities in the country are run by Democrats.
And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that citizens, contrary to popular belief, are leaving the state. A 2022 United Van Lines study showed more people leaving than coming, while a CBS Colorado study reported that in 2010, 37,569 people moved into Colorado while in 2021 that number dropped to 14,371.
With far-left Democrats firmly in control, the outlook for Colorado appears bleak.
