Cheyenne Police: Youth Violence Is A Problem, But Less Fentanyl Trafficking

Cheyenne Police Chief Mark Francisco says that while crime generally went down in 2025 compared to past years, one area of concern is youth violence.

Francisco made the comments as part of an interview for the "Weekend in Wyoming" program coming up on Saturday.

Citing a recently released report on crime in Cheyenne in 2025, the chief noted that while property crimes, for example, went down, crimes against people--assaults, homicides and similar offenses were up slightly. That overall increase was a small one--only seven more than the year before--but the chief says youth violence is a concern.

'' A lot of our violence last year was centered around youth" Francisco said. ''A lot of the suspects and victims were youth."

He said that trend was more pronounced than in the past.

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The chief says one possible solution is strengthening partnerships with youth violence prevention efforts in the community and on prosecuting violent offenders.

Francisco says why youth violence increased is "a tough question to answer....each crime is really unique to itself. We don't particularly have a gang problem here."

He says that while across the country, violent crime tends to be drug related, ''We don't necessarily make that connection here. It's more youth related."

He says police are looking at what may be causing youth crime in hopes of addressing the problem.

Chief Credits Border Security For Decline In Fentanyl Deaths

One area of good news in the report was a decrease in drug overdose deaths by six.

''Most of the overdose deaths were fentanyl related' he says. "With the crackdown on  southern border, it's tougher to get stuff across there....I think maybe the supply has tightened up a little bit. So consequently we aren't seeing as many overdoses"

But he says he's hearing from federal law enforcement that fentanyl traffickers are now switching to smuggling the drug in from Canada as opposed to Mexico.

'When you have a demand and there is money involved, people find a way to meet that demand."

You can hear the entire interview with Chief Francisco on Saturday at 11:05 on the ''Weekend in Wyoming'' program on AM 650, KGAB.