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February 11, 2021
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 94 | ISSUE 14
Health-care workers relieve police in program with no arrests Chief says STAR program frees officers to fight crime BY DAVID SACHS DENVERITE.COM
A young program that puts troubled nonviolent people in the hands of health-care workers instead of police officers has proven successful in its first six months, according to a progress report.
Since June 1, a mental health clinician and a paramedic have traveled around the city in a white van handling low-level incidents, like trespassing and mental health episodes, that would have otherwise fallen to patrol officers with badges and guns. In its first six months, Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response program, or STAR, has responded to 748 incidents. None required police and/or led to arrests or jail time. The civilian team handled close to
six incidents a day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, in high-demand neighborhoods. STAR does not yet have enough people or vans to respond to every nonviolent incident, but about 3% of calls for Denver Police Department service, or more than 2,500 incidents, were worthy of the alternative approach, according to the report. STAR represents a more empathetic approach to policing that keeps people out of an often-cyclical criminal justice system by connect-
ing people with services like shelter, food aid, counseling and medication. The program also deliberately cuts down on encounters between uniformed officers and civilians. “This is good stuff, it’s a great program, and basically, the report tells us what we believed,” said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen. Pazen added that he doesn’t want to sound flippant, but the approach was somewhat of a known quantity SEE PROGRAM, P4
Mural makes the lives of caregivers brighter Local artists paint mural in employee stairwell at St. Joseph Hospital to honor frontline staff battling COVID-19 BY CHRISTY STEADMAN CSTEADMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
For three days, local artists Karlee Mariel and Raj Chaudhuri spent time photographing the frontline health-care workers at Denver’s St. Joseph Hospital. They sought to capture the diversity of the staff, and all the different roles at the hospital — from nurses, doctors and therapists to cafeteria workers, janitors and security staff. The people in these photographs would come to serve as the inspiration for a mural of gratitude located in an employee-only stairwell inside the hospital, which is located at 1375 E. 19th Ave. in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood. SEE MURAL, P10
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 6 | LIFE: PAGE 8 | CALENDAR: PAGE 9
Karlee Mariel, a Denver-based muralist, paints details on the uniform of a health-care worker for the inspirational/gratitude COURTESY PHOTO BY GIUSSEPPI BUSTIOS ALBAN mural that represents all of St. Joseph Hospital’s staff on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
DON’T BE SCARED
A wonderful world of monsters awaits on the 16th Street Mall P8