(COLORADO SPRINGS) — A safety improvement at Memorial Park in Colorado Springs is now complete. It comes after police data found that there were more than three hundred crimes reported at Memorial Park between 2020 and 2022.
Thousands of people gather at Memorial Park to skateboard, bike, fish, play frisbee, or for just a nice picnic. While most people feel safe during the day, many people do not at night.
“Sometimes I come at night, but not recently, maybe only once or twice. But I remember it still being fun,” says Kylan Kincaid a skateboarder.
On Friday Colorado Springs Police announced they completed a 1.7 million dollar security project on the part. This comes after a string of crimes that happened at the park at night.
“You can really come here like any time past, like seven, 8:00. And you’ll probably see something mischievous for other people in the parking lot doing drugs up there, spray painting, just kind of doing it. It’s kind of like a free-for-all here. It’s kind of like a, just a wild wasteland,” said Devin Brown a skateboarder.
Police held numerous meetings with community stakeholders and revealed the top three biggest concerns were lighting, vandalism, and crime.
“I think the cameras are definitely a big help because now you can know that everyone else can see what goes on here and how half the time it’s not just the skateboarders that like it’s the issue. It’s like the skate park. Like you have everyone come here, like not just skaters, come here. Like you have people that are like doing drug deals,” says Devin Brown,
Devin Brown has been coming to the skate park since he was a kid and calls the park home. He says he comes to the park almost every day. But he says he’s tired of people thinking the skateboarders are responsible for the crimes.
“Like we just kind of got the bad rap just because, like, other things do go down here, but it’s not necessarily the skaters. So, I think having like the cameras and like all of like the gates, it’s something going to show that it’s more of like the outside world coming in here, starting things versus like the actual skateboard community starting everything that goes on here,” he said.
In response, police installed 19 gates at all the entrances to make sure vehicles cannot enter the park after hours.
They also added ten security cameras and 180 new or improved lights to increase visibility at night.
“Just respectfully, please stop coming here with all the mysterious stuff, because it does look, it does make the Colorado Springs skate community look really rough when they come here and bring like, all of like their violence and like drug use and all that here because then it’s like everyone’s afraid to come here just because of like not even the skateboarders at this point,” said Brown.
Memorial Park hours are between 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.
