By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
The odds might not be ever in your favor in Colorado that if you operate a motor vehicle here, it won’t be stolen at some point.
A case made Friday by Cheyenne Wells Sen. Rod Pelton is a family from Wray on the distant Eastern Plains, near the state line shared with Nebraska. The family, from Cory Gardner Country in Yuma County, had traveled to Denver on Thursday, but had difficulty returning home.
“They were up here enjoying a good time at state wrestling and their car was stolen,” he said.
Wray is a town of about 2,400 with a crime rate nearly four times lower than the average.
Extrapolating FBI data from 2019-2023, Newsweek reports auto theft per capita is highest in Colorado among all states. That FBI data also details auto theft has risen nationally every year since 2019. In Colorado, vehicles are stolen at a rate of 584 per 100,000, a Market Watch report reads. Only the Washington, D.C., area was higher.
“We come to the city and we get vandalized, too,” Pelton said, noting the lower crime rates on the Eastern Plains, where he resides.
He asked the Colorado Senate to find solutions to auto theft and other crime.
“We really need to crack down on crime in this state, and in this city,” he said.
Senate Bill 23-257 funded an auto theft prevention cash fund two years ago at a cost of $5 million. A search of 75th General Assembly legislation does not find an auto theft bill having been filed in either chamber.