Almost 60 people have been shot or killed by state laws police in Colorado this year, making it the deadliest year since 2020, according to  .
According to a data compiled by The Denver Post, 34 people were killed by police commanders and sheriff’s deputies in Colorado at this time next year, and 19 people were injured.
According to the data, police fatally shot 36 individuals this year and injured another 20. Today, Colorado is just eight police killings away from passing last year’s total completely.
If those eight murders are dangerous, Colorado will have had the most fatal shootings since 2020, when at least 43 people were killed, according to Mapping Police Violence. The federal task tracks all-caliber police fatal shootings.
According to Mapping Police Violence, Colorado is currently the sixth deadliest position in the nation for officers shootings, with 6.4 % of those killed per million so far this year.
According to Dr. Lee Friedman, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who helped lead the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project,” residents killed by law enforcement personnel have been on the rise over the past 20 years.”
According to Friedman, nonfatal shootings continued to rise nationwide until 2013 when they abruptly stopped and have since maintained a constant trend.
Because there has n’t been any effort to develop reliable data, Friedman claimed,” the data does not give a clear picture of the driving factors.”
He claimed that the rise in police shootings is largely due to a number of factors, including specific law enforcement bodies ‘ training of officials, regional crime rates, firearm possession, and how non-law police agencies respond to mental health crises and community diversity.
According to previous studies from the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project, murders increased as a group’s average household income decreased, but murders decreased as societies became more diverse, according to Friedman.
According to The Denver Post data, the Thornton Police Department topped the state in this year as the state’s deadliest area. The office recorded two police killings in 2023, including one dangerous and one nonfatal, but rose to seven shootings and six murders in 2024.
Denver’s police killings in 2024 fell to two deadly and two nonfatal after eight officers murders in 2023, according to the database. That season, six of the subjects were armed. Four died and four were injured.
The Colorado Springs Police Department followed tightly behind Denver each season with five shootings, three deadly and two nonfatal, in 2023 and four murders, three dangerous and one nonfatal, in 2024, according to Denver Post information.
Each year, Aurora has documented three individual killings. One was nonfatal in 2023, but all three were deadly in 2024, the data shows. In 2024, Pueblo’s officers office fatally shot three more people than they did in 2023, an increase from two.
The Lakewood Police Department, Fountain Police Department, Fort Collins Police Department, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Commerce City Police Department and Broomfield Police Department have each confirmed two police killings so far in 2024 and the subsequent authorities have documented one:
•Greeley Police Department,
•Englewood Police Department,
•Adams County Sheriff’s Office,
•Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office,
•Littleton Police Department,
•Craig Police Department,
•Windsor Police Department,
•Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office,
•Montrose County Sheriff’s Office,
•Larimer County Sheriff’s Office,
•Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office,
•Elbert County Sheriff’s Office,
•Glenwood Springs Police Department,
•Saguache County Sheriff’s Office,
•Longmont Police Department,
•Milliken Police Department,
•Weld County Sheriff’s Office,
•Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office,
•Colorado State Patrol.
According to Denver Post data, there were no shootings at nearly a hundred organizations where at least one official tragically shot Coloradans in 2024.
But, 13 Colorado police departments and sheriff’s offices that killed one man in 2023 have reported zero murders so far this year.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety study, Colorado continues to be one of the five states with the highest deadly shooting rates among the nation’s five says.
From 2016 to 2020, of the 25 largest cities in the United States, Denver had the highest level of fatal police murders, with an average of roughly 10 deadly murders per million people, according to Everytown.
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