Denver’s homicides fell nearly 50% to an 11-year low in 2025, plunging to levels rarely seen over the last three decades as crime overall largely declined across the city.
Thirty-seven people were killed in Denver in 2025, the third-lowest number on record for any year since 1990, according to records kept by the Denver Police Department. Only in 2000 and 2014 did the city see fewer annual homicides, with 33 and 31 people killed in those years.
“This is a historic success for the city and we are thrilled about it,” Mayor Mike Johnston said Friday, characterizing the decline in violence as “beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.”
The 37 homicides in 2025 mark a 47% decrease from the 70 homicides the city experienced in 2024, and a 62% drop from the decades-high 96 homicides in 2021.
Non-fatal shootings also declined. As of mid-December 2024, 228 people had been shot in 194 shootings across Denver. That fell roughly 40% to 137 people shot in 114 incidents by mid-December 2025, according to police data.
The drop in gun violence came amid overall declining violent crime and property crime in the city, and continued a years-long trend that’s been seen both locally and nationwide as crime fell from historic highs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Denver, all crime dropped about 5% from 2024 to 2025, according to the police data.
Denver saw about a 6% decline in violent crime and about a 13% drop in property crime, according to the police department.
But the city saw an increase in what it calls “other crimes,” which covers a broad swath of offenses, including, among other crimes, white collar offenses, public disorder and indecency, possessing or selling drugs, simple assault and domestic violence assault. Such crimes rose about 5% citywide.
Larceny, which includes retail theft and other types of theft, rose about 6%, a jump that Denver police Chief Ron Thomas attributed to increased reporting as the department ramped up its focus on theft enforcement in 2025 and encouraged business owners to call police about retail theft.
“That led to a higher number being identified for us, which is still helpful; it still helps us understand where we need to focus our resources,” Thomas said.
The city saw an 18% drop in retail theft in two shopping centers — Quebec Square and the Shops at Northfield — where officers focused attention on theft as part of a pilot program in 2025.
Johnston hopes to see retail theft drop across the city during 2026, he said.
“We think over time we will get to steadier lower numbers,” he said.
Homicides down
Denver’s homicides in 2025 were not driven by gang violence, domestic violence or youth violence.
The city saw just two gang-related homicides and three domestic-violence homicides in 2025 (down from five and 12 in 2024, respectively). Only two children — a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy — were killed, down from seven in 2024, police records show.
Through mid-December, another eight children, all between the ages of 15 and 17, were shot but survived, police records show. That’s down from 26 children shot and wounded in 2024.
Most homicides in 2025 were connected to interpersonal disputes, arguments or confrontations between people known to each other about a variety of topics, Thomas said. Investigators discovered a previous connection between the victims and suspects in 19 cases, police data shows.
In nine cases, the victim was killed by a stranger. In another nine cases, the relationship remains unclear.
Suspects shot their victims to death in 65% of homicides and used a knife in 19% of attacks, police data shows.
Thomas credited a variety of police strategies for the drop in homicides and shootings, and noted the city’s focus on particular geographic areas that become hotspots for violence and officers’ connections with community organizations that work to head off violence before it occurs.
“Them doing violence reduction and being out in the community and speaking to young people all the time averts violent crime that we can’t even quantify,” Thomas said.
Adrien Williams, director of violence intervention at Life-Line Colorado, a nonprofit focused on violence reduction, noticed the slower pace of gun violence during 2025. But violence comes in waves, he said, and he is already bracing for the next wave to hit.
“I feel like a lot of the heavy hitters that were out there this past year, they are either incarcerated now, or unfortunately, they’re dead,” he said. “And I feel like maybe it’s going to die out and be slow for a while, and then we will experience little brothers and sisters who grow up and want to take part of what their siblings were part of, or that they started.”
‘The work is not done’
Thomas hopes to continue the slower pace of violence in 2026.
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The chief also expects the department to focus on unsafe drivers over the next year, as well as continuing officers’ focus on public drug use and so-called “quality of life” crimes.
“Seeing people that are drag-racing or riding wheelies down the street or racing around town without consequence leads to a sense of lawlessness that I’m hopeful we can address,” Thomas said.
Johnston said the decrease in violent crime should allow officers to pay more attention to lower-level offenses in the coming year. He wants to see the downward crime trend continue through 2026.
“Our expectation and plan is not just to keep it low, but to try to bring it lower,” he said.
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