MESA COUNTY, COLO. - Annually, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office meticulously reviews and compares crime statistics from the previous year to best understand how to improve the safety and security of our community. This yearly process includes reviewing and comparing Mesa County statistics to the state of Colorado as a whole.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigations began publicly reporting annual crime statistics for the state in 2008. This has since provided a historical timeframe and base from which the state and local agencies compare annual crime data.
Introduction to Crime Statistics
Property crime and violent crime began increasing across Colorado in 2008, only beginning a more downward trend between 2020 and 2023. However, Mesa County has not experienced the same incremental increase in crime. Over the last 16 years, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has implemented intelligence-led policing and proactive crime prevention practices, effectively slowing or reversing property and violent crime trends in unincorporated areas of Mesa County served by the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
Property Crime Statistics
For the second year in a row, cases of property crime in Mesa County declined and reached a near-historic low. Only one other year since 2008 has had fewer property crime cases when compared to 2025.
Unfortunately, fraud cases in Mesa County increased from 2024 to 2025, while across Colorado total fraud cases declined as a whole. Despite this increase, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office fell less than one tenth of a percent under the average clearance rate for fraud cases when compared to the fraud totality of cases across Colorado. The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office continues to take an aggressive approach in reducing the effects of fraudulent crimes in our community by working with state lawmakers to pass bills targeting fraud pain points, such as cryptocurrency ATMs, and hosting free monthly fraud and scam prevention classes for the public. An important lesson taught during the class is emphasizing that the individuals perpetrating the acts of fraud most often do not live in Mesa County nor the United States.
Motor vehicle theft saw a significant drop in Mesa County and across Colorado from 2024 to 2025, though Mesa County far outperformed the state average in case clearance. Between 2024 and 2025, the county saw a decline in vehicle thefts, but also a steady and significant decline in vehicle thefts year after year since 2021. The Sheriff’s strategic creation and assigned mission to special teams have put steady pressure and success on combatting motor vehicle thefts. These special teams dedicate resources and manpower to tackle, track, recover, and arrest those responsible for motor vehicle thefts in Mesa County. Furthermore, the B.A.T.T.L.E (Beat Auto Theft Through Law Enforcement) West grant has been awarded to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office to manage in coordination with other local law enforcement entities in the county, to actively combat stolen vehicles.
Robbery in Mesa County had a peak in 2023, in reviewing a 5-year trend, with a continual decline year to year including 2024 statistics compared with 2025 statistics. Robbery is the threat under force of taking something of value, and is different from larceny, or more commonly known as theft. There is a greater number of theft incidents in the county than robbery, consistently.
Violent Crime Statistics
Unfortunately, Mesa County did see a slight increase in violent crime overall from 2023-2024 and a similar trend occurred in the 2025 statistics when Mesa County is compared to overall state-wide data. The statistical data for just Mesa County continues to trend down though, when reviewing cases from year to year in the violent crime category. Aggravated assault, robbery, non-consensual sex offense and murder make up the primary crimes of the violent crime category. Despite the complexity of these crime types, the organization remains committed to investigating each case thoroughly and developing innovative ways to reduce violent crime before it happens.
With this in mind, violent crime in Mesa County has decreased by 21.9%, from 2024 to 2025.
Case Clearance Rates
Mesa County continues to outpace average case clearance rates when compared to Colorado averages in nearly every category.
In 2025, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office successfully closed 21.12% of all Property Crime cases, compared to the state’s 16.51% average clearance rate. Mesa County far exceeded the state’s average clearance rate for violent crimes, clearing 63.41% of all violent crime cases compared to the state’s 46.98% average case clearance.
For the first time since 2011, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office did not exceed the state in fraud case clearance rates. In 2025, the Colorado state average for fraud case clearance rates was 8.98% while Mesa County’s clearance rate came in just shy at 8.94% - or .04% lower.
Despite this dip in clearance rates for Fraud Cases, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office far outpaced the state average of 11.91% clearance rate for auto theft by clearing 41.18% of all auto theft cases. Similarly, Mesa County cleared 55.56% of all robbery cases compared to an average clearance rate of 36.97% across Colorado.
The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office is proud to continue a now 16-year trend of holding a higher clearance rate for aggravated assault than the Colorado average. In 2025, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office cleared 81.44% of all aggravated assault cases, while 55.90% of cases were cleared on average statewide. Similarly, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office cleared all non-consensual sex offenses and robberies at a higher rate than the Colorado average. For the first time since 2021, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office saw more than one murder case in a year, with 2025 resulting in three murder cases total. These long term investigations ultimately lowered the murder clearance rate below the state average.
As previous years have documented, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office regularly far exceeds the clearance rate of the state of Colorado in nearly all types of cases. This high level of clearance is due to a multi-pronged attack from efficiency, to legislation, and pin-pointed work directed at the most egregious of offenders.
Each employee of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, whether sworn or non-sworn, understands the importance of solving cases while maintaining the highest standards of law enforcement work. This has contributed to workplace excellency and deep pride in all that is achieved within the organization.
Conclusion Note from Sheriff Todd Rowell
“Solving crime takes tenacity, dedication, and a drive for improvement in community policing,” Sheriff Todd Rowell said. “Having continued low crime rates in Mesa County, year after year, are a direct result of the dedication to proactive policing, community partnerships, and creative problem solving demonstrated by the men and women who serve this agency. It’s been my honor to serve as the elected Sheriff of this organization and in a community that is leading the way in public safety in Colorado.”
Note: All statistics used for this report were up-to-date as of March 27, 2026 and can be found via the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) and Colorado Crime Statistics website. To access all crime statistic graphs and data charts, please click here.
