The number of homicides in Denver dropped by nearly half last year — showing greater improvement in the city than the nation as a whole.
There were 48 percent fewer homicides in 2025 compared to 2024, according to Denver Police Department data. Nationwide, October data compiled by the Council on Criminal Justice from the country’s largest cities suggested homicide rates had fallen by around 20 percent, and the organization predicts more of the same when national reports drop later this month.
Pinpointing what exactly is driving crime rates can be tough, though, said Ernesto Lopez, a researcher with the Council on Criminal Justice.
“It’s never just one thing driving crime,” Lopez said.
City officials have credited changes to policing strategies, including an emphasis on better lighting and other changes in high-crime areas. Those local decisions can have some impact, Lopez said. But so do broader trends like aging populations and population size that can be challenging to track in real time.
While Denver’s drop in homicides is encouraging, Lopez noted the city is catching up with a trend already seen in other cities, like Baltimore and St. Louis, that have seen large drops in recent years.
Homicides have been steadily falling since they peaked in 2021, when the city recorded 96 killings. Last year, Denver saw 37 homicides in total — the fewest since 2014 and the third fewest since 2000.
Considering population growth, Denver’s homicide rate in 2025 was its lowest since 1990, according to DPD.
Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said the drop in homicides can, in part, be attributed to how quickly officers are treating shooting victims.
“I think that's why you see our non-fatal shooting rate is low, but not nearly as low as our homicide rate,” he said. “And that's because often they are applying chest seals and applying tourniquets and doing lifesaving measures before ambulances arrive to take them to urgent medical care.”
Indeed, the number of fatal shootings has dropped much faster than the number of non-fatal shootings, which declined about 34 percent. The drop in overall violent crime was 6 percent.
Other cities have seen dramatic decreases, too. San Francisco reported 28 homicides last year — its lowest level since 1954, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Baltimore saw its fewest homicides in nearly half a century. And Seattle saw homicides fall from 53 in 2024 to 31 in 2025.
Most of the homicides that took place in Denver stemmed from arguments between people who knew each other, often as they left clubs and bars. Domestic violence was the second most common cause.
Though they remained common causes of violence, both domestic violence and gang violence homicides dropped, according to Thomas. There were no house-party homicides in 2025, a change from recent years. Drug-related homicides were also down.
Other types of crime also dropped, Thomas told Denverite, pointing to a 16 percent reduction in burglaries and a 36 percent drop in auto thefts.
“While violent crime is certainly an identified focus for us, we also understand that a lot of folks aren't impacted by violent crime, but are more so impacted by property crime, and that often is what drives perceptions of safety,” Thomas said. “And so we're happy to see that our various strategies have been successful in lowering a number of crime types.”
What has the city changed?
The city has shifted to a “place network investigation” strategy, focusing on changing the environment in areas with long histories of violence. The idea is to ensure high-crime areas have adequate lighting, fencing and functional businesses.
“Just that alone is a deterrent to anti-social behaviors,” Thomas said.
Denver began piloting the program under former Mayor Michael Hancock, and Johnston and Thomas have led its implementation. Thomas sees it as more of an investment strategy than an enforcement strategy.
“We're actually investing in a neighborhood or investing in a community, rather than just putting officers in there to enforce the law,” he said.
All of the high-crime sites — intersections like Alameda Avenue and Federal Boulevard — saw fewer homicides. Four saw zero homicides in 2025.
Generally, the strategy has not resulted in more arrests or law-enforcement contacts, according to Thomas.
What the mayor says:
Mayor Mike Johnston attributes the drop in homicides to an increase in police. He also says the city has emphasized that safety is a citywide responsibility.
“It's about economic development,” Johnston said. “It's about transit and infrastructure. It's about safe streets. It's about after-school programming.”
He’s proud that crime is dropping and satisfaction with the police department is on the rise.
Thomas emphasized the importance of Denver’s partnerships with community groups like Struggle of Love that have helped with “violence interruption and mitigation” and pushed people who might likely offend — say, a person who lost a loved one to gun violence — from committing homicide.
Thomas also attributed some of the drop in homicides to the stabilization of people who had moved from encampments into shelter and housing during the mayor’s House1000 and All In Mile High homelessness resolution campaigns, saying it also freed up officers’ time.
The police department has taken around 1,900 illegal guns from the streets, and gun safety laws like those mandating safe storage have tightened, Thomas said.
The chief attributes the national drop in violent crime to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and also to strategies shared between departments. That includes new approaches to policing and technologies like automatic license-plate reader surveillance cameras.
“It's not just effective in reducing our auto theft rate, which is significant, but also, you know, it's, it's been helpful in identifying perpetrators of homicides and non-fatal shootings and other violent crimes,” Thomas said. “And so I think it's a very important tool, but also important that we recognize the privacy concerns that the community has and make sure that we are tending to those concerns while using the tool appropriately for its crime prevention efforts.”
What about 2026?
Violence is still a fact of life in cities like Denver. Days after the department publicized its 2025 numbers, at least one person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting at a gathering in the wake of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Another person was stabbed to death in the Sunnyside neighborhood.
Thomas and Johnston say that reducing violent crime remains a focus.
Meanwhile, Thomas is also concerned about an increase in traffic fatalities and plans to task more officers with enforcing the rules of the road.
“While we have seen a significant reduction in homicides, we've actually seen an increase in traffic deaths,” Thomas said. “I think that there has been an increasing sense of lawlessness with the drag racing and other unsafe driving behaviors that people can observe.”
Johnston is also continuing his push on “quality of life crimes” like public drug dealing and vandalism, and he said he wants to address domestic violence.
“We're not satisfied,” Johnston said. “We don't think this is mission accomplished. We want to keep doing better.”
Lopez said while cities should aim to minimize crime, they should also expect homicide rates to rise and fall over time.
