I used some new tools to investigate #Denver's #CrimeMap

To investigate missing crimes on Denver’s crime map, we used Microsoft Access. Here are just some of the missing crimes we discovered:

• 2011 Robbery where someone snatched another person’s purse.
• 2011 False imprisonment, kidnapping, sex assault with an object. DPD tells me the boyfriend of the victim was the bad guy.
• 2011 A locked vehicle was stolen off the street.
• 2010 Home burglary. The crooks stole electronics from the house.
• 2010 Someone stole the radio from an unlocked car. (Lock your car people.)
• 2010 The victim was starting arguments with people when DPD tells me a man approached the victim and stabbed him in the stomach.
• 2009 DPD says the suspect forced his way into an apartment where he fondled one victim and physically assaulted another.
• 2009 The suspect removed bikes from the garage and was confronted by the owner while placing the biles on top of the vehicle, DPD says. The suspect then got inot the vehicle and hit the victim while driving away.

To figure out which crimes were missing, we joined fields in the table and then told the program to give us all records where the join was NULL. 

It’s a bit of computer lingo. Here’s the easy way to think of it. We took a database of all crimes reported to DPD and took a database of all crimes that show up on crime mapper. 

Then we told the computer to, ‘Match all the records and then show me each record that did not join up with another.’

There were nearly 12,000 missing records in all.

The City of Denver says it is working to get the missing crimes to appear on the crime map.

To see what crimes are missing in your neighborhood, search the database created by 9NEWS here. Here’s a link to Denver’s crime map.

It’s amazing how much computer assisted reporting has changed a reporter’s life.

Death threat via email

I often post email from viewers in my blog. Most of the time it's people trying to scam others. I'd bet this is the case here too. This one happens to come with the added bonus of a death threat.
Anyone else received something like this?

The craziest part comes after "Kadiri" tells me he's been paid $1,000,000 to kill me. In the second paragraph, he goes on to say I do not need to be afraid of him. WHAT?!

While this email is odd, part of me does worry it might cause someone to loose sleep.

I just reached out to the FBI to see if agents can tell me where these types of emails generally come from. They have a Cyber Squad with agents who are experts in this type of thing. I'll let you know.

Best of the best: Tweets from #DebateDenver

Why I made the right decision NOT to jump in the middle of a fight, despite what some viewers think

(The video is graphic.)

(The video is graphic.)

As I finished up a live shot recently and walked back to the truck, I watched a group of people fighting behind bushes and trees. At first I couldn’t tell what was going on. It appeared something wasn’t right so I called 911. 

As you see in the video, it went from bad to worse. Some of the people left, but not all of them.

(Read 9NEWS’ story posted on 9news.com)

My initial reaction was to run up to stop the fight. However, there were several people involved and I couldn’t tell whether they had guns, knives or other weapons.

I have covered law enforcement for years and learned this: if I get seriously hurt, there often isn’t anyone left to call 911. Help for all is delayed.

When I can help someone involved in a car crash or safely help a victim of a crime, I do so every time.

My photographer was quick thinking and rolled tape to capture the suspects’ faces and document what was going on. You can imagine what impact that could have on a law enforcement investigation.

What you can’t see in the video is me on the phone with emergency services, going up to the victim, keeping him calm and relaying as much information as I could to police and paramedics over the phone.

The whole situation was unfortunate. So is leaving viewers with the impression we don’t care. The situation was unsetting, saddening and something we all thought about for quite some time that night.

I applaud people for wanting to help this man. I hope this blog post gives another perspective. We all have to make the best choices we can in a very short amount of time.

It wasn’t safe for us to rush the men. Once they left, we did the best we could to help the victim. I think we made the right decision. In this situation there was no easy decision.

Please think before you tweet. Anyone who has lost a family member will thank you #NFL #SM

It's hard to think of a possible excuse that would explain this situation.

After losing his brother that weekend, Torrey Smith decide to play his NFL game Sunday. The Ravens won.

Then a fan decided to tweet something heartless and thoughtless.

http://usat.ly/ShjSqH

Anyone who has lost a family member can imagine what that must feel like.

I want this Tweeter on ESPN to make a statement. She owes it to everyone.

Hopefully the words "I'm sorry" come from her mouth and don't simply appear in a statement.