 Hello everyone. Thank you so much for being here. This is my first time being called to the chief's office, so I felt like I might have been in trouble, but I'm delighted to be here. And I'll say this, thank you so much for taking the time today. We are excited today to announce a comprehensive strategy to fight auto theft across the city of Denver and what we think will put us on path to be one of the most aggressive enforcement cities to make sure we can reduce auto theft across the city in a comprehensive way. I want to talk a little about the variables that led to us getting to this place and the strategy we are going to use to get out of this place. And the evidence we have that shows that these strategies will work. We know this was a function of a number of overlapping variables over the last several years that led to dramatic increases in auto theft. One was it became much easier to steal a whole brand of vehicles, particularly new vehicles that came out with defects that made it much easier for thieves to get in and to steal them and abscond with them. Second was obviously we saw a great increase in crimes citywide of which auto theft was often the leading indicator, but sometimes the least urgent when we had increase in violent crimes. And so this was able to expand significantly. And the third was it happened in conjunction with a dramatic drop in our patrol capacity. As people may know from about 2020 to 2021, we lost about 13% of our patrol capacity, which is the equivalent of losing almost an entire patrol district in our of a police district. And so that lays out we think what the path is to how to solve the problem we're facing. So I want to talk you through the overview of the five key steps of this coordinated plan we're announcing today. I'll give it over to the chief and his team to talk in greater detail. The first is you may remember when I was campaigning for mayor, we publicly pushed for the idea that we needed to have a dedicated unit in the Denver Police Department focused on auto theft. Chief Thomas took it upon himself to get that started and launched successfully. We have now the Denver auto theft team that was launched as a pilot last year. It has been very successful. We're excited to commit to now making that pilot effort permanent so that the auto theft team will be a permanent function of the police department going forward. The second one is we have also demonstrated the powerful success of the use of license plate readers. These are cameras that allow you to read the license plate of a vehicle when it is leaving a location. Once we have a car that's been reported as stolen, we know what that license plate is. We can then scan across those cameras for identifying those license plates. Under the chief's leadership we deployed that strategy as you know at the Denver airport. Over the last six months we put license plate readers at Den airport. Over the last six months we have dropped the auto theft rate at DIA by 90 percent. 90 percent decrease in auto theft at Den using these license plate readers. That is why our plan now is to expand that capacity across the city. We will take the city from two license plate readers currently in operation around the city county of Denver to 111. We will put 111 license plate readers across the city at more than 70 intersections which means if you steal a car anywhere in the city we will have a chance to track you as soon as you have left that location. Know the direction in which you fled and be able to help inform police pursuit of those individuals at that time. The third is as was mentioned and our team can go in greater depth on this. There are certain vehicles and brands that are very very susceptible to theft and make up the great majority of thefts happening in the city right now. Many of those right now are KIAs and Hyundai's and those are because they have a function where you can break in. I'm not releasing any news to help thieves. This is all over YouTube at this moment. You can pop the cap off of the start button. You can use an iPhone charger or anything else to connect that electric circuit and start a vehicle with no key fob or anything else. So that is why we're working with KIA and Hyundai to host events this spring where we will invite all Denver residents who have these vehicles to bring them in for us to do a software update that will protect these vehicles from further theft. That's a huge change for folks that are at great risk with those vehicles right now. We are also in the interim chief has led the capacity that if you currently have one of those vehicles and are worried about this you can get a manual protection like a club or others from one of our local police districts to help keep you safe in the meantime. Number four is we are also expanding a program that the chief helped start called Denver Track which is a program by which you can register your vehicle with the city so we can immediately locate if it has been stolen. Some of us not naming any names might happen to have some experience with this situation but I will tell you what happened when I got my car stolen is I had not done this. We had not registered this with the Denver Track program so what I have to do that on a Sunday afternoon is try and call your manufacturer try and call the original place where you bought the vehicle try to get a hold of someone who will transfer you and it took hours before we can get that accomplished. If you pre-register your vehicle through the Denver Track program with the DPD the minute your car is stolen our police department and our auto theft team is pre-authorized to call the manufacturer on your behalf on a dedicated police line where they can immediately activate the tracking for that car and find it and so this is a critically important need we want everyone in the city who has a car made after 2014 you should do this because it is the best way to make sure if your car is stolen we get it recovered. Second thing is if you're also someone like me who may happen to own a vehicle that is made before 2014 and does not have GPS tracking we are also partnering with you to put in place a tile system that you can use that you can store in your vehicle that we can track you can also register that with us so in the event that your car gets stolen we can also immediately activate the capacity to help you search for that vehicle quick recovery is the most important part of the strategy here. Finally I'll give it over to the chief the fifth part of the strategy is as I mentioned a huge part of the difficulty here was lost patrol capacity. When we reduce our police force across the city many things happen one of them is our inability to respond quickly to auto theft. This is why we are so focused this year on restoring our police force to full authorized capacity that's why the chief and I are working together to fill three cadet classes this year that would put 167 cadets and then officers back on the street that would bring us back to greater patrol capacity than we had even in 2018 which would mean we have the people on the streets of the capacity to respond. So we think together these five steps focus on keeping now a permanent Denver auto theft team the focus on expanding 111 license plate readers across the city to help deter and chase vehicles that have been stolen the ability to work with people that have high-risk vehicles that being stolen to upgrade those with software improvements to make them more protected. The ability to expand our Denver track program so you have your car registered with us at the minute it's stolen we can start chasing it and the ability to restore our patrol to full force we think helps put us on a path to make dramatic impact on this problem. So thank you all so much for being here I'll turn it over to the chief and then we're both happy to take questions after the chief's done. So thank you so you know as the mayor stated we're building on our successes and lessons learned from our auto theft prevention and enforcement efforts we saw again a 20 percent increase in 2023 and the decrease that we saw at DIA as well which I think was also not just the license plate readers but I think the fantastic work of the metro auto theft team as well as the Denver auto theft team. Also using available tools and resources you know we saw the you know nearly 2,200 auto theft suspects arrested also 2,800 people signed their vehicle up for a Denver track and none of those people have had their car stolen so far so you know thankfully because they're registered we would be able to recover that car quickly if it's stolen but we're hopeful that the fact that we actually give everybody that registers a sticker to place in a very conspicuous location on their vehicle is actually a deterrent to it being stolen. So again you know as the mayor stated our DAT team is moving from pilot to permanent and so based upon the successes that you can see here 200 auto theft arrests made specifically by this team that's about 20 percent of all the auto theft arrests made by the city an additional 45 arrests for other felony crimes and then 30 illegal guns recovered by this team as well which supports our theory that a lot of these cars that are stolen are actually stolen and then used in some other type of violent crime. The team is made up of five highly specialized investigators as well as two uniform patrol officers and then supervised by a sergeant. So you know I think one of the primary things that we're all here to talk about in today's conversation is we are preparing to install a network of license plate reader cameras throughout the city as was mentioned we're going to have 111 cameras installed throughout the city it'll cover all six of our police districts. 93 of those cameras are actually going to be purchased through general fund and we'll be adding that to 18 that were previously acquired by a councilman cashman and councilman Sawyer. These license plate readers will be helpful in helping us locate vehicles that have been reported stolen as well as vehicles that have been reported as being involved in a violent crime such as a homicide as well as as well as hit and runs. So certainly we want to have some policy safeguards so as you can see the system will not collect personal identifiable information the camera is vectored right at the back of your car so all it's going to capture is that license plate. The data is only going to be stored for 30 days unless it is identified as evidence in a crime and it will be tagged in that particular footage or image will be retained for beyond that period of time but if it's not tagged it will be it will not be retained beyond 30 days. It will not be used for traffic enforcement or justifications for searching vehicles all alerts will be verified with dispatch so if an officer gets an alert on a specific license plate they're going to check that information across reference that information with a dispatcher before making any enforcement action. All searches of the database will be tracked and then we'll be performing random audits or searches. I think it's also important to acknowledge that the footage is going to be owned by the Denver Police Department seeing kind of Denver not going to be sold or shared by the vendor. It's also not connected to registration data or any third-party database such as Carfax or the DMV. And then you know in the vein of transparency we are going to be setting up a transparency portal where you can see information I think is going to be important to folks. This is going to be located in the same place where all of our other transparency data is located on our DPD website. You'll be able to see exactly where all of our cameras are located. You'll be able to see all of the all of the license plates that were tracked and those that were identified as being wanted. Also our our policy will be available for review here. This is just an image of Castle Rock's policy that they have uploaded. Castle Rock by the way has deployed license plate reader cameras and saw a 40 reduction in their auto theft since the deployment of their cameras. So before we get to question I just want to say that you know we're certainly encouraged by the decreases that we've seen so far and encouraged by the promise of this new and enhanced strategy and we're certainly thankful to the mayor for prioritizing this issue which is certainly a concern for the entire community. So questions? Yes? So when this was like these first cameras were put out a couple years ago there were some stories about people getting paid for things like traffic violations. There were also concerns about like ice accessing some of these cameras and I know you said it's only going to be used for this stuff but like what would you have to say to the public like worry about surveillance or like how can we also be assured that you know three years from now DPD won't decide to start using these cameras for something else? Certainly fair question. So I think the cameras that that you're talking about I think one of them is at Six in Federal and those cameras were actually installed for different purposes and so the tolerances for lack of a term that were that were set on that were for various you know traffic violations and things like that and so the the tolerances on these cameras are not going to be set for that it's only going to be set for auto theft and violent crimes and hit and runs it's going to stay that way our policy is going to ensure that it stays that way we're going to have insurance measures in place to make sure that no one is searching the database and using it for any other any other justification and and and by by city policy mandate we're not going to be sharing any information with ICE we do and I think you know as the mayor alluded to so obviously any vehicle that was manufactured after 2014 probably has some sort of manufactured tracking device but those that were that were built before that date I think those tiles are very effective and so we certainly encourage people that have vehicles that were made before 2014 to get one of those devices place it in a in a inconspicuous location within your car and then give us that permission to track that vehicle it's certainly very helpful yes sir do you have to establish probable cause obtain a warrant or what's the process look like for you guys actually accessing that data using it in a case so the the the fact that that the license plate is associated with an auto theft so you know someone reports their car they say this is my this is my license plate or witness to a homicide or a non-fatal shooting says this is the vehicle this is the license plate of the vehicle I mean that that is reasonable position probable cause right there and obviously you know when that plate is is um alerted to an officer they're going to contact the dispatcher to verify what they're in fact seeing so yes sir well expensive technology certainly so I guess that is a concern we're not going to be shy about where these these are located I know that the contract includes some some maintenance and so I think that other people's experience are that they aren't easily you know damaged yes yes yes I mean we certainly don't want to have any disparate impact on any particular community certainly these were the locations were identified through an overlay of violent crime auto theft as well as it runs so that's how we identified the locations that they were best deployed at and yeah we want people to know that they exist we want people to know that if you steal a car you're going to be quickly tracked and identified and captured and I think we want the public to have assurance that that if your vehicle is stolen that we have that opportunity to recover quickly yes I mean they have to be you know kind of in a location where they can you know see down towards that where that license plate is is visible and so you know I think any you know traffic poles and in other utility poles and things like that are optimal locations yes Jason we have you know we've done quite a bit of research and so there are other cities that have used this and again you know even locally loan tree has used it very effectively almost immediate success I think seen at DIA so that I think is provable concept for why this is an effective strategy yes ma'am so a few months ago is when they were implemented at DIA so obviously they had a pretty significant issue there were a number of crews that were targeting DIA and I think the installation of the cameras and then the focus of both our local team and the metro wide team was effective in in addressing that issue we are currently in the procurement stage so I expect that we will get through that fairly quickly and then installation is about four to eight weeks so I think in the very near future we will have these installed yes ma'am well as I said there they are deployed across all six police districts and so certainly there are locations you know maybe in central Denver or along east Colfax maybe parts of west Denver where there's been a higher concentration of both stolen cars and violent crime and so again that those were the metrics that we used to identify where the best locations would be yes and you say central Denver meaning like downtown Denver correct yes yes ma'am is it possible to get a list of where these are going up and then another question like when I think about tiles or increased like car tracking things like that that also like raises alarm bells for me for like potential victims of domestic abuse so like is there concern about how increased car tracking could lead to more abuse that maybe isn't getting reported or things like that yeah no I appreciate that question so two things one yes we will be publishing the locations of these and those are those can be available to you and yes I do understand the concern about the ability to track your own car certainly when someone calls to report their car stolen and even calls to report that they are able to track that they are I think externally advised by the dispatcher not to follow their car and not to track that car I do know that there is thought of legislation I think you know banning that practice for someone to to track the the location of their car I think that we've seen recently a pretty tragic incident where someone who tracked their own car and then was involved in a gun battle with the individual that stole their car and that person lost their life yes sir yeah so I preach that that question so a couple of things you know I think that that one other thing it wasn't mentioned were some legislative concerns as it related to auto theft that I think led to an increase in auto theft I think some of those things have been corrected through the legislature and so and I also understand that you know in you know very close relationship with with the abeth mccann she understands as well the urgency in addressing this issue and holding folks accountable and so I think that she would stand here today and say that she is aggressively prosecuting folks as deal cars yes ma'am I would say both I would say that it certainly has a deterrent effect and I think the other thing is it it makes it much easier for us to locate that car get it back to the owner very quickly and I think that the the average impact to a victim of having their car stolen is about $10,000 per victim an annual cost for investigating auto theft is nearly $600,000 and so I think that if we can reduce the the numbers of cars that are stolen and height you know increase the the recovery rate of those vehicles I think that we will have a significant cost impact mayor does this uh does your personal experience make this a higher priority it does not make it a higher priority it just makes me more informed as to how the process works and how it should work and I think this is why we wanted to focus both on prevention and on recovery and so what you'll see here are a series of strategies around prevention if we can help folks that have cars that are at risk update their vehicles to be less prone to theft that helps prevent we can have you sign up for the denver track program and have that sticker on your windows so every potential auto thief knows when they come up to your car that your car is already tracked and that's a bad idea and if we can be aggressive about everyone in the city knowing there will be the capacity for us to identify auto thieves in every neighborhood of the city when the team first came to me and said we think the system really works we could roll it out step by step our response was to say now let's flood the whole city with these license plate readers because we want to make sure every neighborhood is secure we want to make sure no neighborhood is exposed and we want to make sure that there's not one sneaky route to get out of Denver that every thief knows they can use that being detected we want to make sure we can find them wherever they go and so our goal is this should be a clear message that if you steal a car in this city you will be caught and you will be prosecuted and that means you ought to decide either not do it or to do it someplace else because we think there's way too many people being put at risk and to just name what the chief said for families that have one car and are trying to get to and from work and they're trying to be able to pay the rent not being able to get into your car not be able to get to and from work that can have a massive impact on families economic well-being and we want to make sure that they are protected as I do and everything they can to serve and support the city so we think this puts us on track be one of the most aggressive cities in the country on fighting this effort and we think through the strategies this team have proven can work we can rule out a system city-wide that will be equitable will be fair and will be aggressive and making sure that no one has an easy task to try to steal a car in Denver so thank you all so much in spanish a lot of theft here in Denver Te roba de tu coche. También hay cosas que puedes poner en tu coche como trackers que podemos usar si alguien te roba tu coche, podemos darle y recobrirlo. Y también si tienes un vehículo más, más nueve, después de 2014, puedes registrarlo con nosotros. Y si te roban, podemos encontrarlo también. Entonces, esos cosas van a ayudar aquí en Denver a hacerlo en ciudad que es mucho más seguro que antes. Por eso, todo de esos dólares todavía están pagado por la budget que tenemos aquí en Denver con el departamento de policía. Gracias a todos. Thank you all so much for being here.