Report: Fort Collins bucks statewide increase in crime

Northern Colorado was largely exempt from a statewide surge in violent crime last year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

While the annual Crime in Colorado report shows the crime rate has held steady or dropped in and around Fort Collins, especially when considering population growth, area law enforcement doesn't uniformly take the report's findings as gospel.

The report shows a statewide uptick in several categories, most notably a 10 percent jump in the number of homicides to 189 across the state in 2016. That's in addition to reported rapes increasing from 3,275 to 3,512, and nearly 20,000 stolen vehicle reports — a 22 percent jump from the year prior. 

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But as has been the case across the years, Northern Colorado was relatively insulated from the increase in reported crimes conveyed through the report.

"Fort Collins is a safe community, especially compared to other similar municipalities across the state and nation," Interim Police Chief Terry Jones said. "However, no area is immune from criminal activity."

Among the takeaways from this year's report: 

• The number of offenses reported in Fort Collins in 2016 bucked years of decline, climbing almost 4 percent from 5,125 in 2015 to 5,312 last year. However, last year's total remains 9 percent lower than the number of offenses reported in 2011.
• Offenses reported by the Larimer County Sheriff's Office dropped 8 percent from last year to 1,421. With the exception of 2013 and 2014 — years met by substantial declines in crimes reported locally — last year's total is the lowest since at least 2011. 
• The number of reported crimes has held steady or dropped in most categories for Fort Collins and Larimer County. That means the overall crime rate, which considers population in a rapidly growing region, has held steady or even declined slightly in recent years. 
• Statewide, the number of reported crimes increased 5.5 percent between 2015 and 2016. 
• Adjusted for population, homicides in Colorado climbed 6.3 percent, rapes climbed 5 percent and aggravated assaults jumped 6.1 percent. Burglaries marked the only major category that saw a population-adjusted decline, at 1.3 percent. 

Data kept by Fort Collins Police Services shows the total number of criminal offenses reported in Fort Collins — spanning assault to theft, homicide to arson — hit a five-year low in 2015.

Violent crimes, which include aggravated assaults, rapes, robbery and homicide, have held between 1.7 and 2.2 per 1,000 residents in Fort Collins since 2012, according to population-adjusted statistics analyzed by the city's police department.

Residents are far more likely to be victims of property crimes such as arson, burglary and theft. Those rates have held relatively steady over the past five years — last year's rate of property crime was 27.5 crimes reported per 1,000 people. 

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That's encouraging news to those with Fort Collins police. Statistics like those released in the CBI report enter the equation of policing and staffing, "but it's not the sole driver of our priorities," Jones said. 

"We use comprehensive, ongoing analysis to determine the best use of our resources for minimizing crime and increasing safety," Jones said in a statement. "... We can’t get complacent. As our city grows, we’ll keep striving to make it the safest community in the nation."

The annual report on crime in Colorado includes data from 244 law-enforcement agencies. Those records are included in FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data, widely held as some of the best available records used to monitor crime trends and policing across the country.

But not everyone holds the data, which paint a slightly rosier picture of crime in the region, in such high regard. 

Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith has recently cited a sharp increase in violent crime locally as a factor straining the resources of his department and jail. On Tuesday, he called the annual CBI report a "short recap of incomplete and unverified data" and said it was "not of tactical or strategic value" to his agency. 

"This data does not reflect the more than 20,000 calls dispatched by our agency in 2016. It does not reflect the 43,000-plus officer-initiated incidents last year. It gives little clue to the almost 10,000 cases filed by LCSO deputies last year, nor does it reflect 14,000 traffic contacts made in 2016," Smith wrote in an email. 

"It does not address vehicular eluding cases. It does not give a picture of the resisting arrest cases, the assaults on officers, the failure to appear or failure to comply warrants or the general arrest warrants processed," he added. "It gives no clue to the number of active sex offenders registered and monitored by this office."

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Though Smith noted there was value in studying the report's multiyear trends, he cited statistics about an increase in felony charges, specifically those tied to drugs, in Larimer County as cause for continued vigilance that the report does not adequately capture.

Smith cited an increased number of arrests made by law-enforcement agencies in Larimer County in 2016, a trend he said has continued in 2017.

It's difficult to parse out exactly what's driving an increase in arrests in the U.S. or locally. Population growth is part of the explanation, though the jump in arrests far outpaces population trends. Other leading explanations include increased police staffing and repeat offenders racking up more counts and cases, the Coloradoan reported earlier this year. 

A lag in reporting makes it difficult to do timely state-by-state report comparisons.

However, the most recent UCR data from 2014 places Colorado 23rd among states in terms of violent crime rate when weighing population — Vermont accounted for the lowest rate, while the District of Columbia, Alaska and Nevada accounted for the highest. 

Among roughly 200 cities across the country with populations between 100,000 and 250,000, Fort Collins' violent crime rate in 2014 ranked in the top 25 percent. 

"Fort Collins is one of the safest communities in the nation, and there is data to back that up," Mayor Wade Troxell said in a statement recently after Smith criticized the city's handling of issues related to homelessness and transience. "Maintaining a safe community for all who live here is a priority for City Council and city staff, and we are working within the law to find solutions to homelessness impacting not only Fort Collins, but communities around the state as well."

Reporter Jason Pohl covers public safety for the Coloradoan. Follow him on Twitter: @pohl_jason. 

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