Lakewood police report: overall crimes down since 2023, arrests higher after law changes and warrant work

Chief Patrick Smith, Lakewood police chief, told the City Council study session on April 14 that overall reported crimes in the city have fallen since 2023 while calls for service and arrests have risen in the first quarter of 2025.

"We were up 5% on the number of calls for service as compared to last year," Chief Smith said, summarizing the department's first-quarter report. He said felony arrests were down roughly 5% but attributed that to state law changes that reclassified some offenses; by contrast, "gross misdemeanor arrests are up 125%" and "misdemeanor arrests are up 24.6%," with warrant arrests up 29% and a total increase in arrests of about 20% compared with last year.

Smith said crimes against persons showed declines on multiple measures: aggravated assaults were down 4.3%, civil assaults were down 7.8% and there had been no homicides so far in 2025. "We're still at 0 for this year, and we continue to hope to remain there," he said. He reported robberies were down 37.5% and a category in the transcript labeled "*** crimes" was down 56.7%; total crimes against persons were down 12.2%.

On property crime, Smith reported a mix of changes: burglaries down 35%, fraud down 16.4% and larceny up 8.3%. Motor vehicle thefts, a focus area in 2023, were down 73.6%; stolen-property incidents were up 18.8%. Smith said vandalism and weapons-law violations moved in opposite directions; the presentation indicated a reduction in vandalism and a 9.5% increase in weapons-law violations. He summarized: "we had a total reduction of 15%." He also said comparing back to 2023, "we are down almost 50% if you go by the total number of crimes," which he said equates to about 600 fewer victims.

Smith discussed enforcement tactics. Pursuits and eludes have "leveled out at the number of 16 eludes and 16 pursuits during this time frame," he said. Shots-fired incidents were down 40.5% and traffic collisions were down about 10.5%. He described adjustments to patrol staffing and targeted emphasis in the Lakewood Town Center, and credited tools such as the Flock system for supporting reductions in some crime categories.

Council members praised the report and asked for public-facing resources. Council Member Bell said she appreciated the weekly public summaries and told the chief, "I love the cadence of them every Tuesday." Councilwoman Pierson asked whether hotspot maps were available; Smith replied, "We put up all of that information, the crime maps, the locations, and things of that nature so that citizens can go on" to the department's portal.

The presentation was informational; the council did not make a policy decision or take a vote on the item. Smith closed by noting the department's daily chief's report (the department's most recent snapshot) and said a new daily update would be released the following day.