“Soft on Crime” Legislation Leading to More Guns & Violence on Denver Streets
Dr. Terry Hildebrandt is in the news again! In this article, he talks about how irresponsible policies and legislation are exacerbating crime and illegal camping in Denver.
In addition to harmful policies, the current M.O. is for authorities to offer treatment services and shelter to the unhoused living in tents (which is almost universally declines) rather than insist on it - especially for people suffering from addiction and/or severe mental illness.
Denver can find shelter for everyone on the street - there are hundreds of beds available every night.
Hildebrandt says that “I see no excuse left to ever tolerate allowing anyone to rot on the street in an illegal tent to overdose and freeze to death. How is there any dignity for the unsheltered in allowing dangerous illegal encampments to remain?”
Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver know he’s right … Do you agree?
SOS Camps Enable Crime & Addiction
The SOS camps, run by Colorado Village Collaborative, look great on paper but they are not what they seem. Duane Peterson is a longtime Colorado resident who attended CU Boulder and is sober with no criminal record, nor has he ever been a drug user or diagnosed for a mental health condition. “These factors not only made him an outcast among the BVC residents, but also made him the target of stalking, death threats, and racial attacks - which ultimately forced him to move out for the sake of self-preservation.”
There have been numerous accounts of negligence on the part of Colorado Village Collaborative. Duane estimates he made over 50 complaints with the Denver Police Department and “Nothing was ever done”.
Dawn McNulty and the other Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are staunchly against SOS spaces. We intend to address and remove the glaring oversights and extreme safety hazards to neighborhoods populated by families with children.
Progressive Policies are Worsening Addiction and Increasing Drug Deaths
Since liberalizing drug laws 20 years ago, deaths from illicit drugs rose from 17,000 to 93,000.
“Victimology takes the trust that it is wrong for people to be victimized and distorts it by going a step further. Victimology asserts that victims are inherently good because they have been victimized. it robs individuals of their moral agency and creates double standards that frustrate any attempt to criticize their behavior. Even if they are behaving in self-destructive, antisocial ways…Such reasoning is obviously faulty. it purifies victims of all badness. But by appealing to emotion, victimology overrides reason and logic.”
“Progressives don’t trade away Fairness for victims, only for those they see as privileged. Progressive still value Fairness, but more for victims, and their progressive allies, than for everyone equally, and particularly not for people progressives view as the oppressors and victimizers…Progressives also value Authority and Loyalty for victims above everyone else.
What kind of a civilization leaves its most vulnerable people to use deadly substances and die on the streets? What kind of city regulates ice cream stores more strictly than drug dealers who kill 713 of its citizens in a single year? nd what kind of people moralize about their superior treatment of the poor, people of color, and addicts while enabling and subsidizing the conditions of their death?
Shellenberger covers all of this in his book - San Fransicko : Why Progressives Ruin Cities - In a lot more detail
What Could Be Worse than Heroin? THE NEW METH
“It’s not just that meth causes homelessness. It also perpetuates it…you start using meth because it’s dirt cheap and so available. And pretty soon you can’t get out of it. It prevents you from leaving homelessness as much as it creates homelessness.”
A cheaper and far more potent strain of meth from Mexico has been flooding the US, a synthetic-chemical cocktail so potent it can send many users into rapid psychosis.
“And that’s where the tents come in. A tent is a perfect housing for someone who believes the entire world is a threat - it’s private and portable. Conversely, if you’re in that mindset, the very last place you wanna be is in a homeless shelter.”
This new type of meth is fueling the homelessness crisis in Denver as well.
Union Station Sweep…It’s a Start
On February 23, 2022 the Denver Police Department executed a major sweep of the area. At least 42 individuals were arrested, most of the offenses were drug-related.
On December 3, 2021, Mayor Hancock responded to the outcries of RTD passengers and groups like ours and asserted that “Illegal drug use, public urination and unsafe loitering must not be allowed to continue. Union Station is an important public transit and commercial space and we will redouble our efforts to ensure it is clean and safe (…maybe he visited safeandcleandenver.com) for all of those who use and enjoy it.
Keep up the good work Denver Police Department!!
…Now only if our judges and DA, Beth McCann would keep these criminals (some felons) in jail.
Drugs, Alcohol Chaos and Death Rampant in Denver Homeless Housing
According to David Heitz, “the use and sale of illegal drugs is rampant in Denver homeless housing. It jeopardizes people who became sober while in jail or the state mental hospital.”
He also says that most homeless housing buildings have several drug dealers living in them with meth, heroin and crack readily available.
People in David’s building have died of drugs and alcohol and often cause violent disturbances.
Housing first = Housing fiasco.
We’re in the News!
Dr. Terry Hildebrandt and the other Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are fed up with the increase in crime, violence and open drug use in the city.
Dr. Hildebrandt says that “if we had folks wandering streets as Alzheimer’s patients getting run over by cars, we would never allow that. However, some of the addicts I’ve experienced right here, outside my front door clearly can’t make good decisions. I think it’s (an) unethical situation to allow people to freeze to death and kill themselves in the street.”
Dr. Hildebrandt and the other members of Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver are focused on enacting tougher drug laws on a state wide basis along with more on-demand, in-patient mental health and substance abuse treatment centers. We are pushing for zero tolerance of urban camping.
Colorado Worst in Nation for Car Theft
Colorado is the worst state in the country for auto theft. Denver Police Department Chief Paul Pazen suggests that such crimes were rising in part because perpetrators have been getting off easy.
On average, in 2021, 75 vehicles were stone each day in the Denver metro area.
97% of the people who have been arrested in the last three years for auto theft have multiple arrests for auto theft.
“People that committed ‘property crimes’ like vehicle theft, were admitted to the jail. They were released right back out to continue doing what the do,” Sergeant Troy Kessler with Colorado State Patrol said.
As a stark contrast - the Vail Police Department is warning skiers and riders that borrowing a friends ski pass will result in a maximum fine of up to $999 and/or 180 days in jail. source: https://snowbrains.com/jail-for-using-someone-elses-vail-pass/
A Must Read: The New Meth
“Remarkably, meth rarely comes up in city discussions on homelessness, or in newspaper articles about it. Mitchell called it “the elephant in the room”—nobody wants to talk about it, he said. “There’s a desire not to stigmatize the homeless as drug users.” Policy makers and advocates instead prefer to focus on L.A.’s cost of housing, which is very high but hardly relevant to people rendered psychotic and unemployable by methamphetamine.”
"Tents themselves seem to play a role in this phenomenon. Tents protect many homeless people from the elements. But tents and the new meth seem made for each other. With a tent, the user can retreat not just mentally from the world but physically. Encampments provide a community for users, creating the kinds of environmental cues that the USC psychologist Wendy Wood finds crucial in forming and maintaining habits. They are often places where addicts flee from treatment, where they can find approval for their meth use."
“There is no central villain in the P2P-meth story—no Purdue Pharma, no dominant cartel. There’s no single entity to target, either. So the issue is often enveloped in a willful myopia. Advocates for homeless people seem reluctant to speak out about the drug, for fear that the downtrodden will be blamed for their troubles.”
At last, folks have started to acknowledge what neighbors have known and seen for the last three years. The tent cities in Denver are not folks "one paycheck away" from losing their homes". They are not families or seniors. These tent cities are meth towns - filled with people who are deep in a very dangerous addiction.