The highest number of citizen-initiated calls to police during March came from Colfax between Pennsylvania and Pearl streets, according to police. On March 18, Billy Newson, 29, was shot to death at the corner of Pearl and Colfax. Police have arrested Anthony Escobedo, 31, for the murder.
X Bar manager Roy England listens during a community meeting Thursday to discuss criminal activity East Colfax Avenue. Drug dealing in the area has been a problem, and neighbors fear that cuts to the police budget could make it worse.
From behind the bar at Prohibition, owner Jimmy Callahan can watch the drug dealers and prostitutes trolling for business along a strip of East Colfax Avenue where a man was killed last month.
If he spots someone loitering by the streetlight outside his property, he tells them to move along.
“I give them one (changing of the) light,” he said.
On Thursday, Callahan was one of about 25 people who attended a community meeting with Denver police brass, District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and representatives of the city attorney’s office and other officials to address the problem.
Since robberies and assaults began spiking along the corridor between Broadway and Downing Street and the surrounding area in January and February, District 6 police Cmdr. Tony Lopez has added a foot patrol to the units who already patrol the area in cars, and officers have substantially increased their contacts with suspicious characters, he said.
Arrests are up, but as police have increased the pressure on Colfax, Lopez said, some of the illegal trade has moved to nearby East 16th and 17th avenues. “We are still directing resources into those blocks,” Lopez said.
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