Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on Colorado's Morning News. Officials in Douglas County say
most of their crime committed in their district does not
reside in their county.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Douglas County only makes up twenty six point six percent
of the arrests. Think about that, little more than one
in four of the people arrested for committing crimes down
here actually call this place home.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
District Attorney George Brockler says between June of last year
and May of this year, twenty five percent of their
arrests were from Denver, nineteen percent reside in Aurora.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And District Attorney for Colorado's twenty third Judictrial District, George Brockler,
joins us now in the KA Comma Spirit of Health Hotline.
We appreciate you coming on with us, DA Brockler. So,
since we get into you with that piece of audio,
where are these people coming from that are committing crime
within your district in Douglas.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
County, Well, it looks like the bulk of the not
living in Douglas County crowd comes from Denver, followed by Aurora,
and then a hodgepodge of the other cities within a
Rapahoe County. The two biggest contributors to our crime outside
of Douglas County are Denver in a Rapa ho al
Passo contributes some, but a smaller amount. I think we
(01:06):
looked at it, Colorado Springs itself was only good for
about five point five percent of out of town violators.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What's your response to the Denver Mayor's office who says, well,
criminals don't care too much about when it comes to
county lines.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Yeah. I agree with that, and what that means is
Denver needs to up its game. Criminals know where the
law is enforced, and that's part of what we've been
trying to do here in the first six to seven
months of our time in office, is to send the
message that hey, if you're inclined to commit crime, stay home,
do it in your own county, don't come down here
and do it. We've started to see some green shoots
(01:43):
on that in terms of the downturn and some of
our offenses. For instance, we've moved to a one hundred
percent everybody's going to get some type of incarceration if
you steal a car down here, and we have already
started to see a pace that has us I think
decreasing another twenty five percent this year in our motor
vehicle theft. You combine that with the efforts of Parker
and Loan Tree and super high tech Castle Rock and
(02:05):
their real time crime center, and this has become a
very inhospitable place for criminals, whether they're from here or
somewhere else. But I don't think we get to shrug
it off by saying, hey, criminals will be criminals and
they just go where they want. I think the other
part is, and I hope you guys were looking at this,
is that about forty four percent of all the offenders
that we have arrested in our jurisdiction are already under
(02:28):
some kind of supervision or part of the criminal justice
system in some way, whether it's a bomb, to summons,
a warrant, parole, probation, that part of our system seems
to be failing us.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, they are recidivous. Then it sounds like that I'm
curious about this because many of our listeners will have
one assumption about this. Well, I'll offer this first, are
these people transient in some nature? And then many of
our listeners thinking, well, they're migrants, illegal immigrants creating these crimes.
What does the data bear out with that well.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
As you can imagine, the data on the illegal immigrants
part is becoming harder and harder to quantify by design
by our state legislature, who has created impediments to not
only sharing of information, but acquiring statistics on these kinds
of things. So I can speculate about it, I can
tell you anecdotal stuff, but it would be irresponsible for
me to tell you that there's a certain percentage that
(03:15):
is attributable to illegal immigration. I'd like to know that.
I think we deserve to know that. In terms of
the transient nature, there is a significant portion of the
population here that is categorized as unknown slash homeless, but
not homeless in the we're living on the streets kind
of a way, but homeless in that when these people
(03:35):
are interviewed by the pre trial services folks before they
get their bond, they don't have a committed residence. They
might say, well, look, I'm staying with friends or I'm
staying with relatives, but they don't call it their home
or their house. That's another thing we need to drill
down on.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Denver and Aurora would argue that their crime rates have
actually gone down, So what else would you like to
see those counties do in order to address and prevent
their crime further.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Well, one, I'm thrilled that their crime is going down.
That should be our collective and individual goals. But that
is not a response to the issue of the fact
that we seem to be a magnet for bad guys.
We seem to draw down, especially in the area of
property crimes. People from Denver and Aurora continue to look
at us as a place to come down and line
their pockets. They're only going to find that we are
(04:22):
less hospitable for that than any other jurisdiction they could
go pilfer from. That's part of it. The other thing
I'd like to see these jurisdictions do so we can
have an honest and transparent conversation is come up with
similar data. Let's see where we're at. I mean, I'd
love to know. I'd love to hear from Denver, you
know what, twenty five percent of our crime is committed
by Douglas County soccer moms like I doubt that's the case,
(04:44):
But aren't we entitled to know what is that source
of crime and how do we best address it? I'd
like to know who's putting people on probation that are
committing offenses, and not just the jurisdictions, but judges. There
is an opportunity here for us to take this and
rather than become hyperf offensive about what individual cities are doing,
is to take a hard look at themselves and say,
(05:05):
let's look at the data and figure out how we
can collectively attack this thing so the metro area is safer.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Speaking of data, it's the Agel debate we've had going
back decades that many believe that harsher penalties, harsher laws
when it comes to crime reduces the crime rate. Does
the data bear that out? Is that the case if
you have tougher laws and penalties, people commit less crime.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Well, listen, it's not just to be able to say
we have tougher tougher penalties. These have to be actually
imposed penalties. And if you ask me, based on my experience,
and I've only been doing this for thirty years, that
has to be a timely imposition of a sentence. For
someone that commits an offense to find out fourteen, sixteen,
eighteen months later that you're going to have this kind
(05:46):
of a sentence, It's not a deterren So what we've
done in Douglas County has moved to a lotty Dottie.
Everybody that commits some theft related crime is going to
be arrested. And if you're going to be arrested, you're
going to go see the judge. And that means at
least one night in jail. And so we are moving
towards one hundred percent on that. Right now we at
about eighty five percent. That's up twenty percent from before
(06:07):
we were a judicial district, and we're starting to see
the downturn. The other thing is the anecdotes. Guys. I
got to tell you some of the favorite things I
see are the body cams that get sent to me
from our various law enforcement agencies where defendants who are
getting hooked up to cry coming down. They're like, I
knew it. I knew I shouldn't have come to Parker,
or I knew I shouldn't have come to laun Tree.
I love those videos. I wish I could put them
(06:29):
on a billboard.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
District attorney for Colorado's twenty third Judicial District, it's George Brockler.
Thank you so much for your time this morning.
Now on Colorado's Morning News. Officials in Douglas County say
most of their crime committed in their district does not
reside in their county.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Douglas County only makes up twenty six point six percent
of the arrests. Think about that, little more than one
in four of the people arrested for committing crimes down
here actually call this place home.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
District Attorney George Brockler says between June of last year
and May of this year, twenty five percent of their
arrests were from Denver, nineteen percent reside in Aurora.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And District Attorney for Colorado's twenty third Judictrial District, George Brockler,
joins us now in the KA Comma Spirit of Health Hotline.
We appreciate you coming on with us, DA Brockler. So,
since we get into you with that piece of audio,
where are these people coming from that are committing crime
within your district in Douglas.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
County, Well, it looks like the bulk of the not
living in Douglas County crowd comes from Denver, followed by Aurora,
and then a hodgepodge of the other cities within a
Rapahoe County. The two biggest contributors to our crime outside
of Douglas County are Denver in a Rapa ho al
Passo contributes some, but a smaller amount. I think we
(01:06):
looked at it, Colorado Springs itself was only good for
about five point five percent of out of town violators.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What's your response to the Denver Mayor's office who says, well,
criminals don't care too much about when it comes to
county lines.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Yeah. I agree with that, and what that means is
Denver needs to up its game. Criminals know where the
law is enforced, and that's part of what we've been
trying to do here in the first six to seven
months of our time in office, is to send the
message that hey, if you're inclined to commit crime, stay home,
do it in your own county, don't come down here
and do it. We've started to see some green shoots
(01:43):
on that in terms of the downturn and some of
our offenses. For instance, we've moved to a one hundred
percent everybody's going to get some type of incarceration if
you steal a car down here, and we have already
started to see a pace that has us I think
decreasing another twenty five percent this year in our motor
vehicle theft. You combine that with the efforts of Parker
and Loan Tree and super high tech Castle Rock and
(02:05):
their real time crime center, and this has become a
very inhospitable place for criminals, whether they're from here or
somewhere else. But I don't think we get to shrug
it off by saying, hey, criminals will be criminals and
they just go where they want. I think the other
part is, and I hope you guys were looking at this,
is that about forty four percent of all the offenders
that we have arrested in our jurisdiction are already under
(02:28):
some kind of supervision or part of the criminal justice
system in some way, whether it's a bomb, to summons,
a warrant, parole, probation, that part of our system seems
to be failing us.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, they are recidivous. Then it sounds like that I'm
curious about this because many of our listeners will have
one assumption about this. Well, I'll offer this first, are
these people transient in some nature? And then many of
our listeners thinking, well, they're migrants, illegal immigrants creating these crimes.
What does the data bear out with that well.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
As you can imagine, the data on the illegal immigrants
part is becoming harder and harder to quantify by design
by our state legislature, who has created impediments to not
only sharing of information, but acquiring statistics on these kinds
of things. So I can speculate about it, I can
tell you anecdotal stuff, but it would be irresponsible for
me to tell you that there's a certain percentage that
(03:15):
is attributable to illegal immigration. I'd like to know that.
I think we deserve to know that. In terms of
the transient nature, there is a significant portion of the
population here that is categorized as unknown slash homeless, but
not homeless in the we're living on the streets kind
of a way, but homeless in that when these people
(03:35):
are interviewed by the pre trial services folks before they
get their bond, they don't have a committed residence. They
might say, well, look, I'm staying with friends or I'm
staying with relatives, but they don't call it their home
or their house. That's another thing we need to drill
down on.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Denver and Aurora would argue that their crime rates have
actually gone down, So what else would you like to
see those counties do in order to address and prevent
their crime further.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Well, one, I'm thrilled that their crime is going down.
That should be our collective and individual goals. But that
is not a response to the issue of the fact
that we seem to be a magnet for bad guys.
We seem to draw down, especially in the area of
property crimes. People from Denver and Aurora continue to look
at us as a place to come down and line
their pockets. They're only going to find that we are
(04:22):
less hospitable for that than any other jurisdiction they could
go pilfer from. That's part of it. The other thing
I'd like to see these jurisdictions do so we can
have an honest and transparent conversation is come up with
similar data. Let's see where we're at. I mean, I'd
love to know. I'd love to hear from Denver, you
know what, twenty five percent of our crime is committed
by Douglas County soccer moms like I doubt that's the case,
(04:44):
But aren't we entitled to know what is that source
of crime and how do we best address it? I'd
like to know who's putting people on probation that are
committing offenses, and not just the jurisdictions, but judges. There
is an opportunity here for us to take this and
rather than become hyperf offensive about what individual cities are doing,
is to take a hard look at themselves and say,
(05:05):
let's look at the data and figure out how we
can collectively attack this thing so the metro area is safer.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Speaking of data, it's the Agel debate we've had going
back decades that many believe that harsher penalties, harsher laws
when it comes to crime reduces the crime rate. Does
the data bear that out? Is that the case if
you have tougher laws and penalties, people commit less crime.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Well, listen, it's not just to be able to say
we have tougher tougher penalties. These have to be actually
imposed penalties. And if you ask me, based on my experience,
and I've only been doing this for thirty years, that
has to be a timely imposition of a sentence. For
someone that commits an offense to find out fourteen, sixteen,
eighteen months later that you're going to have this kind
(05:46):
of a sentence, It's not a deterren So what we've
done in Douglas County has moved to a lotty Dottie.
Everybody that commits some theft related crime is going to
be arrested. And if you're going to be arrested, you're
going to go see the judge. And that means at
least one night in jail. And so we are moving
towards one hundred percent on that. Right now we at
about eighty five percent. That's up twenty percent from before
(06:07):
we were a judicial district, and we're starting to see
the downturn. The other thing is the anecdotes. Guys. I
got to tell you some of the favorite things I
see are the body cams that get sent to me
from our various law enforcement agencies where defendants who are
getting hooked up to cry coming down. They're like, I
knew it. I knew I shouldn't have come to Parker,
or I knew I shouldn't have come to laun Tree.
I love those videos. I wish I could put them
(06:29):
on a billboard.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
District attorney for Colorado's twenty third Judicial District, it's George Brockler.
Thank you so much for your time this morning.
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