Restoring Education and Community Involvement in Denver: Priscilla Rahn

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Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.

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Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Rahn. Thank you so much for joining the conversation today. This fall, in 2026, there is a new private school that’s opening in the Centennial, Colorado area. It’s called Excalibur Classical Academy. Their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. They are opening K-3. So if you have a young child and you’re looking for a new school for them, we invite you to go to their website. It’s Excalibur Classical Academy dot org. You can find out more information about the curriculum and you can sign up for a tour, a parent meeting. Or if you are interested in applying to teach there, please submit your resume. But it’s Excalibur Classical Academy. We invite you to take a look. So I volunteer on the Denver police chiefs community advisory board. We meet every other month and it’s a pretty diverse group of people from all walks of life. I’m an educator. We have business people, we have community members and, business owners, all on the board to talk with Chief Thomas about what’s going on and to learn about what the department is doing and what some of their needs are. And I like to jump on the internet and share with my followers and friends about the things that are going on. So I am dedicating today’s episode just to give you an update because I missed doing it in December last So I’m going to give you an update on year end 2025, but also to talk about what we discussed in our February meeting as well. So last year, there was a bond that was on the ballot in Denver. It was ballot issue 2D called Vibrant Denver. It did pass and it included a $75 million request for a state-of-the-art joint training facility for the Denver Police Department, Fire Department, and Sheriff’s Department. And the new facility aims to modernize outdated separate training locations, including a 1920s era hangar currently used by DPD with improved collaborative and realistic training spaces. And the key aspects of the proposed training facility include a joint facility for, like I said, police, fire, and sheriff personnel to improve cross-training capabilities. Modernization and safety. So it’s going to replace current inadequate aging facilities to improve safety, efficiency, and training standards. The features will include potential for a new training center that includes a driving track, scenario house, and dedicated space for mental health and wellness services. And then funding. The $75 million is part of the overall funding $950 million vibrant Denver bond package, which aims to upgrade city infrastructure without raising taxes. Well, I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t ever believe anything when they say it’s without raising taxes. It’s going to extend your taxes is what it’s going to do. But anyway… So that $75 million is not going to be enough. So Denver Police Department is looking for private partnerships and a location large enough to build the new training facility. All right, let’s talk about the homelessness problem. Homelessness is still a problem in Denver. Anytime DBT is looking to solve a problem, they’ll look around to other major cities to see what they’re doing. So we did talk about what Vegas is doing. So Vegas is arresting homeless who are exhibiting aggressive, dangerous or severe mental health behavior and sending them to jail and then forcing them into sobriety, getting them into programs and offering them opportunities to improve their circumstances. They do get housed during their stabilization period. And the goal is to have them sentenced to treatment rather than sentencing them to jail, which I think. is a good idea. It feels like to a lot of people who are complaining about the homelessness problem that the mayor’s road to recovery isn’t working because people are currently getting arrested and then being let back out on the streets, which doesn’t solve the problem. So let’s take a look at what’s happening with the end of year numbers of 2025. So these numbers are from January to November 30th of 2025. There were 1,921 guns seized, a little over 280,000 citizen initiated calls for service, a little over 194,000 officers initiated calls, 41,631 traffic stops, 4,514 felony arrests. 28,643 total arrests. But good news is there were some major crime reductions in the city. So there was a 52% decline in murders, 35% decline in total shootings, 36% decline in auto thefts, and 21% decline in robbery. DPD did continue to add more officers, so their overall strength increased by 30 officers from 1,529 in November of 2024 to 1,555 by the end of November 2025. But DPD will be impacted by city budget cuts. Couldn’t avoid that. There is a reduction in overtime and there is a hiring freeze for CSA. So good news. We graduated in December 45 new recruits and there is another 50 who will graduate this February. So we’re getting closer to 1,631 officers. That’s the goal. In December of 2025, there were already over 2000 guns seized, 4,200 traffic stops, 4,200 felony arrests. There were 11 police shootings. And as of December, the scooter injuries did subside, but I’m going to get back to that whole scooter injury. So we did talk about 911 response times. There are currently 161 employees on the 911 response team. There are 86 call takers. For non-emergency, there are 14 call takers. From January to November of 2025, there were 1.1 million calls that came in. most of the calls were non-emergency. So there are about 2,600 to 3,000 calls that come in every day. And there are typically 15 to 22 people staffed in the evening. The speed of answers and hold times, the goal is 90% of calls answered within 15 seconds. It’s more like 80 to 85%. So they’re trying to get new technology to help AI to help with the non-emergency calls. So what I want to tell you guys is if you have a non-emergency, don’t call 911. Use the non-emergency number, which is 720-913-2000. Or you can just call 311. Okay. Okay. 311 for non-emergencies. Don’t tie up the 911 line. Okay, let’s talk about FLOC because this is causing people heartburn. DPD did try to get a new contract, but the mayor encouraged the city council to vote no, and which they did. So we are still in a no-cost agreement with FLOC through March of 2026. DPD does believe in the strict policies that are around FLOC. We don’t share information. It’s proprietary to Denver, and they’re committed to building the trust in the community. FLOC has done a good job building a system specific to Denver, so there are some safeguards built in by FLOC. And Denver has not violated any sharing policy, so that is good news. Okay, let’s… Fast forward to our February meeting we met on February 4th. We got a really cool update about drones. So DPD is in a pilot program right now with drones, sending out drones as first responders. I’m going to share a video that kind of outlines the work of the drone program.

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I’m looking for a female suspect who is said to have a knife in her hand. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of successes. There she is. DFR 12, I have eyes on that party. And there’s the knife.

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So DFR, as it’s commonly referred to, or drone as first responder, is an extremely beneficial technology to law enforcement.

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Going to the threats in progress. A lot of the successes that we’re seeing right away… calls for service wait times. That suspect is no longer unseen. We have two docs flying from DPD headquarters.

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The DFR drones are all for outdoor use only. And they can fly essentially two nautical miles in any direction from headquarters. We’re not using drones in any passive surveillance capacity. It’s really a responsive program. So a call for service comes out. So I’m just launching for an in progress criminal mischief call.

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And then we can think of it as an officer remotely responding to a call. or if I’m not able to locate someone, I can potentially clear the call without need for patrol resources.

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And those patrol resources can be reassigned to other calls and do things that are more pressing. So currently our data is showing over an 80% rate at which we arrive first on scene. We’ve also seen over 30% on average of the time where our drone pilots arrive and there’s no need to dispatch patrol.

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I can’t speak highly enough about how vital this technology is for officer safety on the ground. Providing that excellent situational awareness, that real-time live information to the officers on the ground and ultimately enhancing the citizen safety and officer safety.

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Okay, so this drone program is pretty fascinating. They are piloting it and hopefully if it goes well, they’ll be able to buy a few more. So what’s significant about the drone program is that 80% of the time they are first responders. So if a call comes in and you have all of your officers out deployed at different locations and DPD can deploy a drone to go see how severe the call is. Sometimes they get there, well, 80% of the time they get there before a live officer and they can get eyes on the situation, if there’s a perpetrator, sometimes they can say, oh, the threat is no longer there. For example, if someone says, I see a bag is on the street and they deploy a drone and the drone gets there and the bag is no longer there, then they don’t have to send an officer as a major resource out to that location. So it saves a lot of time. It saves a lot of money, obviously. There were questions about the camera. So it’s not a surveillance camera. The camera is only on once the call comes in and an officer deploys the drone. And yes, the people that are controlling the drone are officers. And some people said, well, can you have the camera off? while it’s flying? And the answer is no, because the person flying the drone has to be able to see. But the camera looks at the horizon. So the camera is not facing down. So it’s not going through the city looking down at people and pedestrians or in windows or anything like that. It’s looking straight at the horizon until it gets to the location. Then the camera will look down. So there’s no… concern about it passively surveilling people. You can actually go to the DPD website to see live where these drones are because there’s a dashboard. So you can actually see crimes that are happening in real time in neighborhoods. So you can go to an area, your area that you live in, and see what types of crimes are happening in real time on the dashboard. But you can also see what’s happening with the drones. The drones fly at 200 feet. They can’t go any higher than that. They are regulated by the FAA. So there are times when the drones can’t fly, like they can’t fly in bad weather. They are regulated by other aircraft that are around. So they do have to fly within that realm or those regulations because they If you go higher, some people say, well, can you go like a thousand feet? Well, the higher you go, the more you’re in jeopardy of hitting another flying object, but also it takes a long time to come down. So the drones are never armed. The only thing that is on the drone is a parachute in case something happens, they run out of battery or they can’t make it back. a parachute will deploy and then the department can go get the drone, rescue the drone. So they’re never armed. And they’re so lightweight that they don’t have the capacity to have anything on the drones. So it’s just a parachute. So what are the benefits of having drones? Again, they reduce response time. So 80% of the time, they’re the first on the scene. They can usually get there in 90 seconds. Situational awareness, officer safety, de-escalation opportunities. missing persons, suspects, evidence. A lot of times they’re finding firearms and weapons on the street and the grass. So they’re the first to be there. 36% of calls are cleared without patrol response. That saves a lot of time again. And it saves fleet costs to having a person because when you hire a human being, you know, they come with insurance and health insurance and Another benefit of the drones is that they’re great for search and rescue. When the pilot is responding to missing persons call, they are the first on the scene to be able to look. Again, it’s only a two mile radius. If this pilot program is successful, then DPD will be able to buy more and dock them on other buildings. So right now the base is docked at the DPD headquarters and with a two mile radius, you know, obviously it’s not that far. So they’re hoping that they can put more of these drones on other buildings to be able to have a bigger reach. So let’s talk about the technology. It’s a Skydio X10 drone and drone dock system. It’s designed for public safety missions and rapid deployment, maximum 200 feet elevation and integrated with RTCC. So, so far, DPD has had 552 missions flown. 98% of the time, Denver police feel like the intel from those deployments have been helpful. They’ve been first on the scene 84% of the time. And they have cleared calls without patrol response 36% of the time. In 2025, they had 241 deployments, 187 hours of total flight time. Okay, so Chief Thomas is going to Chicago and Atlanta to see how they structure their training space as we are looking at how to use the $75 million from the bond to build a more updated academy for training. So they need to look at other fundraising sources. Let’s talk about ICE. Some of the city council members, Alvarez and Lewis, are proposing that DPD can arrest ICE if they are not making arrests the right way. The question is, is it legal for local officers to arrest federal officers? The chief in LA said he won’t be enforcing federal law enforcement officers. because he and Chief Thomas are concerned about force meeting force. And so the key is for everyone to work on de-escalation strategies. What we’ve seen in Denver is immigration enforcement being very targeted and very precise in where they’re going to make their arrests. So we have not seen major problems or any problems in the Denver metro area with ICE enforcing. Let’s talk about the scooters. Okay, we’re going to bring back the scooter conversation. So Denver has actually seen a very high fatality rate. 16 people died in 2025, which was higher than the last four years combined. So if you’re downtown and you are riding a scooter, please be very, very careful. And if you’re driving downtown, please be aware of scooter drivers because there’s… There’s a glitch and people are not being as careful as they need to be. So our goals for 2026, the mayor announced his safety goal to reduce violent crime. The goal is to reduce overtime and that will come by hiring more officers. So if we hire more officers, then they can spread the load and current officers don’t have to use overtime. And what’s causing some of that overtime are increased protests. So, okay. So that is a quick update on what’s happening in Denver from the end of 2025 and the start of 2026 and some of the goals this year. Just to recap, we’ve got to find ways to build a better facility for our officers for training. including fire and the sheriff’s department, reduce crime. It’s good that we don’t have major problems with ice in the city. I would encourage you to take a look at your city, your county where you live, to get involved. The Independence Institute does classes around getting involved in boards and commissions, and your voice matters. We can’t be passive. If we want to fix the problems that are happening in Colorado, we need to make time to volunteer to be on boards and commissions. And one of the ways you can find out what’s going on in your area is to go to either your city website, or your county website, and there should be a tab for boards and commissions. And there’s something for everybody, whether you love the arts, there are arts boards and commissions, whether you want to be on planning commission, which I was on the Douglas County Planning Commission for four years, and you can learn all about water rights and building and zoning. There are all kinds of safety commissions, library boards. So please find some place for you to be involved in your community. Obviously, we need people to run for school boards and to volunteer. You can start at your child’s school. and be involved in that. If you don’t have time to be on a board or commission, at least go and make public comment. Make public comment at your city council, county, and down to the capitol where our legislators really need the public to show up to make public comment on bills. But what I want to say as someone who is passionate about education you have to prioritize what’s happening in your child’s school. And right now it is school choice time. Parents are looking for where to send their children. And you need to be diligent. You need to ask a lot of questions. You need to show up to parent nights and back to school nights. We have those coming up now. Meet the teacher nights. So please prioritize time in your life. I know everybody’s super busy. And we have families, and we’re working, and some parents are traveling a lot. But you only have one chance to raise your children, and there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of social pressures happening. Teachers are caught between a rock and a hard place when they’re in public education, where they have their own personal values, but their employer is asking them to do things that are contrary to the values that they have. And so you have to have a lot of courage. You have to be strong. You have to be willing to speak up and say, you know, this is wrong. And the left is doing that. The left is going out and they’re doing walkouts and they’re indoctrinating children and they’re bringing politics into the classroom. And we as educators who have a different value system, a moral value system that puts parents first and respects family and respects fathers, we have to find ways in order to speak up because we only have one chance to raise children who are going to understand how to think and be creative and We have a lot of power as educators to turn this big Titanic in America. We are the army. We are the first people that get to make these changes. And why do I say that? Because if you look at the teachers union, look how powerful they have become. Look at how they spend your dues dollars. Look at how they go out there and they protest. And they make videos and they are impacting legislators by donating to them and impacting policy. So if you don’t think teachers are powerful and their voices are powerful, they are. But they don’t speak for everybody. They don’t speak for all the teachers. So we as conservative teachers need to get out there. speak to parents and invite them into our schools and be the common sense leaders that we know that we can be. So that’s the update. If you have any questions about what’s happening in law enforcement, I’m pretty sure in the Denver metro area, there are dashboards where you can go in your local area to find out what’s going on. So you can see the trends and start to be a voice in the community that’s common sense. And I know that our law enforcement would appreciate support. There’s just so much anti-law enforcement rhetoric that’s out there. And obviously we’re seeing it in the federal government but locally our law enforcement officers need our support so take the time to write a note to the chief or to the sheriff and say thank you for all you’re doing we appreciate you putting your life on the line to protect the community if there are events show up please invite them into your schools so that they can build relationships. I know when I was a building principal, I loved having our SROs in the building because they cared about the kids. They would come in and they would talk to children about making good decisions so they could stay out of the radar of law enforcement. And that’s really impactful because we need our students to see law enforcement as protectors and as friends rather than as the enemy. Law enforcement have lives, too. They’re married. They have children. They have families. They want to go home safely at night as well. So if there’s ever a holiday where you could put together a basket, gift cards, take cookies, take coffee, something to not just our law enforcement, but first responders, I know they would appreciate that because they just get beat up and they see. such terrible things that are happening in our community. So let’s just keep them in mind and say a prayer for them that they are all safe. One more thing. If you are interested in supporting funding our law enforcement in Denver to build a facility, that’s a more state of the art, you know, please reach out to the police department. I know they would appreciate your donation. The foundation is having a, a fundraising dinner coming up soon. So you can find more information on the Denver Police Department’s Foundation website. But thank you so much for tuning in and thank you for listening. Catch me next time. And remember that educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.

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Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.