City Park aggravated assault rose 79% against its multi-year baseline, the strongest single-category signal in Denver this month and the headline of this briefing. Mar Lee's other-larceny pattern has been the persistent backdrop, sitting at the top of the underlying rankings last month, but this briefing opens with a new bucket: a sharp uptick in aggravated assault at a single neighborhood rather than the distributed larceny picture that dominated July.
Citywide volume is down 8.2% against the prior 12 months, 39,178 incidents against 42,664 in the year before. The signal mix tells a more complicated story than the citywide decline suggests: 18 spikes and 59 sustained-shift signals are active this month alongside 75 below-trend signals. Other larceny is running above trend across multiple neighborhoods, with Mar Lee, Hale, and Civic Center each registering spikes in the top five.
The other-larceny pattern is appearing across enough neighborhoods simultaneously that it warrants watching regardless of the headline rotation. City Park aggravated assault is a first-month signal with no prior run, so its durability is unproven. If both threads persist into September, the briefing will face a structural story on larceny alongside a potentially developing assault pattern, but the current data supports only noting the divergence, not forecasting it.
Sustained drops worth naming
Motor Vehicle Theft ran below trend in the trailing 12 months — 32% down from the year before. Sustained shifts often precede a baseline reset; we surface them at the same prominence as spikes.
How last month's forecasts performed
Forecasts for August were issued from data through July 2026. 8 of 9 citywide bucket forecasts (89%) landed inside their 95% prediction intervals.
| Category | Predicted | Actual | Error | In CI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggravated Assault | 240[217–264] | 217 | 10.8% | INSIDE |
| Arson | 11[3–19] | 7 | 56.3% | INSIDE |
| Burglary | 365[289–447] | 317 | 15.2% | INSIDE |
| Homicide | 5[2–9] | 3 | 64.9% | INSIDE |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 227[81–373] | 289 | 21.6% | INSIDE |
| Other Larceny | 1141[1044–1232] | 1020 | 11.8% | MISS |
| Robbery | 79[60–98] | 73 | 7.7% | INSIDE |
| Theft from Vehicle | 550[346–755] | 591 | 6.9% | INSIDE |
| Vandalism | 586[508–666] | 553 | 5.9% | INSIDE |
Per-bucket coverage, MAPE, and bias across the full 12-month horizon live on the methodology page.
Public Analyst.ai, “August 2026 — Denver,” archived snapshot.Permanent URL: /denver/2026/august