A Letter to Denver's Police Chief

Mr. Gerald Whitman
Denver Police Chief
1331 Cherokee St.
Denver, CO 80204


Dear Chief Whitman:

I'd like to share with you a string of amateurish experiences that I recently had with the Denver Police Department. I think you too will find it pathetic at every step.

On March 14, 2005 I had my car stolen from my garage. I immediately called the DPD. Officer XYZ promptly arrived at my house and took a report. While cordial, she acted as if my skateboard was stolen. "Not much we can do really." At the most, she spent 1 minute looking at the crime scene. (When my garage was broken into once before and only a tool or two was stolen, the same officer insisted that the crime lab come over and finger print the entire garage). She took the report (#200511XYZ) and left. I was told to keep calling the impound office to see if it had turned up. I did so every day for 12 days. No luck.

On March 17th, I received a phone message (and a subsequent postcard) from the DPD stating that my case was moved to an inactive file because I failed to come up with any suspects. I was also told in the message and by postcard that the case would not have a detective assigned to it. Zero effort on behalf of the DPD to find my car or the thief. I didn't know that I was going to shoulder the entire burden to come up with suspects.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, March 27th my cell phone revealed that the DPD called my mobile phone at 12:35 am. Excited, I thought that perhaps my car had surfaced. I checked my messages. There was no message left by the police. So, I figured to be safe I would call the DPD to check. The officer that answered told me that the car was not found. Then, I was lectured about prank calling the police. I was told by the officer that the reason why the police called me at 12:35am was because someone from my mobile phone number was calling 911 and hanging up. Impossible.