Overview:
Boulder city officials discuss citizen feedback and efforts to improve public safety in response to recent violent crimes.
“Like a zillion,” said Boulder City Council Member Tara Winer, referring to messages she has received from constituents about public safety in the aftermath of the hate crime committed on Pearl Street on June 1. “But the fixes are complicated, and things have gotten better. I don’t have a lot of hope for how much better [it will get] unless we solve some of these problems we’re obviously not solving.”
Winer was elected to the Boulder City Council in 2021 and has consistently advocated for more public safety measures to be implemented. In fact, she was violently attacked in a confrontation outside a restaurant in September 2024.
“I’m a big public safety person,” Winer said. “That’s one of the reasons why I ran.”
The need to prioritize public safety has only grown during Winer’s tenure on the council. On June 1, a man firebombed a peaceful rally advocating for the release of Israeli hostages captured on October 7 by Hamas. The attack injured at least 15 people, and Karen Diamond, a Holocaust survivor, died from her injuries on June 25.
Most recently, on June 26, the Boulder Police Department was notified about a man who was harassing people on the street with a chain that was described as three to four feet long and one foot thick. The perpetrator allegedly struck several people, and at least one is in the hospital with serious injuries. So far, there are ten known victims. These recent attacks in the city have made Winer feel less safe.
“The whole thing is really depressing,” said Winer, who is Jewish and was personally impacted by the attack on Pearl Street. She had attended the rallies in the past, and while she was not personally present that date, she knew the victims through the rallies and as personal friends.
However, these attacks are no longer the exception in Boulder; they have recently become more frequent. In March 2021, there was a mass shooting at the Table Mesa King Soopers where ten people were killed and another injured.
“Unfortunately, we continue to see it all over the country,” said Commander Michael Heath. Heath is currently the acting deputy at the Boulder Police Department and has been working in the area for over 20 years. Heath still believes that Boulder is, for the most part, a safe place, but the last few years have sent somewhat of a shock to the system due to the King Soopers and Pearl Street attacks. He also says that Boulder PD is consistently trying to make changes and adjust.
“We are always evaluating, reevaluating, what we’re doing,” Heath said. “We’ve added officers to the Pearl Street Mall. We’ve extended their hours so that they are working in the downtown area, and they’re designated to work in the downtown area. At the Jewish Festival that happened the very next Sunday, we had a huge increase in officer presence. We had officers from other jurisdictions come and help us out, just to make sure that that was a safe event. But anytime we have events, we’re always looking at how we can make it safe for everybody. We’re continuing to make improvements. We will always continue to make improvements.”
Boulder is not the only city in the United States that has seen a spike in violent attacks. This year, there have been several high-profile acts of terror across the country, many preceding the incident on Pearl Street a month ago. In New Orleans, a man drove a truck through Bourbon Street in New Orleans killing 14 people and injuring 57 more. In Washington, D.C., two Israeli embassy workers were killed at the Jewish Museum after an event. In mid-June, two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses were killed in their homes.
Winer believes that finding a balance between keeping people safe and protecting civil liberties is sometimes a bit difficult, especially in the cases of people with mental illnesses. The perpetrator who attacked people with a chain supposedly had severe mental illnesses.
“It’s really hard when you want to give people rights and you don’t want to step on their rights, but then you want public safety,” she said. “It is the give and take of public safety and individual rights, and sometimes the pendulum swings too much.”
Heath does say that the Boulder Police Department is always taking preventative measures to try and make sure incidents such as these don’t happen.
“We’re always looking at intelligence and things like that,” Heath said. “But when you’re talking about very random things and I’m not saying this is specific to any of these incidents—we always are looking at substance abuse, potential issues, mental health issues and all kinds of things that are not just a police issue, like we have a piece of it, but we always are working with other departments within the City to help address those things … so we’re working with various other departments and groups to get people to the services that they need that are outside of law enforcement.”
Heath still wants people not to feel scared or isolated and encourages people to work with the police whenever possible. He believes it is extremely important for people to report anything that seems suspicious and says that the police take everything extremely seriously.
“I’ve been here for over 20 years, and forever, it was, ‘Oh, it’s not gonna happen in Boulder, it’s not gonna happen.’ Well, we had the King Soopers, and we’ve had this,” Heath said. “If people are feeling like certain things aren’t being handled appropriately, or they’re not being addressed, then we want to hear from them, and then I would say everybody has to be a part of the solution as well.”