Written by Louis Darrouzet
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Is Dallas facing a crime problem? Or is the city safer than ever? It depends who you ask.
A friend of mine was recently visiting Dallas to perform at the halftime show for one of our local sports teams. Before the performance, she walked from the venue to a local convenience store for water. While walking into the store, a homeless woman grabbed her arm and held it in the door, slamming the door repeatedly and injuring her arm while screaming death threats. Thankfully, my friend was able to wrestle her arm away and escape the scene.
Soon after, Gallup released a nationwide poll asking Americans to rank the safety of 16 major U.S. cities. Dallas came in first, a marketing victory that Mayor Eric Johnson did not fail to tout in a Wall Street Journal op-ed soon after.
Who is my friend going to believe, a distinguished research firm and the city’s Mayor, or her own lying eyes? As a performer who solo travels all over the world, she has never been assaulted—until she came to Dallas.
The truth about Dallas crime is much more worrying than public perception has yet grasped. Satisfied with the reassuring declarations of our leaders that their public safety measures have been successful, too many Dallas residents are turning a blind eye to some worrying trends.
Yes, it’s true that overall crime reports and especially violent crime appear to be down since 2022, according to city records. But while overall violence seems to be decreasing, the ultimate danger in a big city—murder—was the second-highest in nearly 20 years, a 15% increase from 2022 to 2023.
FBI crime data reveals that the recent decrease in crime is down from an all-time high in 2019-20, and has yet to even come close to the safety levels of the past 20 years. Also, while violent crime seems to have decreased, so-called “nonviolent crime,” which can include forced entry, purse snatching, arson, vandalism, and human trafficking, has been steadily increasing.
And these reported crimes might just be the tip of the iceberg. The Dallas Police Department now has a policy of ignoring 911 calls for theft, burglary, shoplifting, and hit-and-run accidents, instead requiring callers to fill out an online form. Common sense dictates that this will make crime victims less likely across the board to seek a police response.
To find out our city’s real crime data, police reports would have to be supplemented by an unvarnished glimpse into the appointment calendars of locksmiths, window replacers, security system providers, and property repair services for graffiti and other forms of vandalism.
The lack of response to 911 calls is a triage measure by the Dallas PD to prioritize dangerous crimes like sexual assault and home invasion in the face of a declining number of officers per capita. But even despite police dispatch ignoring such a large portion of 911 calls, some crimes take up to seven hours for police to respond—enough time for the perpetrator to drive from Dallas to Memphis.
With such a lingering police response, would it be surprising if Dallasites were leaving crimes unreported en masse? My friend left her own attack unreported, assuming there was nothing police would or could do about a violent criminal roaming the local area.
Cross referencing the city’s crime data with personnel data from the Dallas Police Department reveals a commonsense solution. As the number of Dallas Police Department officers per capita dipped in recent years, crime rates shot upward. This inverse relationship underscores a critical shortfall in our city’s security apparatus. As the police force dwindles, the thin blue line that separates civility from chaos becomes perilously overstretched. We need more cops.
Hiring more cops is not a call for some kind of surveillance state with warrantless searches and a squad car on every block. It is not call for a war on criminals, either. The call to increase the number of police officers in Dallas is a call to improve our lives. We need to enforce our laws, and to do so we need an adequate number of law enforcement personnel. Without them, our city is chaos, and our laws mean nothing.
Right now, our leaders are not helping. In recent times our District Attorney, John Creuzot, has bragged about closing over a dozen prisons through non-prosecution policies and his so-called “theft amnesty”, which allowed items less than $750 in value to be stolen without penalty. Having a DA who sympathizes with criminals doesn’t make law-abiding citizens feel safe.
Sometimes the propensity of leaders to get high on their own supply of propaganda reaches a crescendo of absurdity. Mayor Eric Adams of New York constantly calls his city the safest in America, daring his critics to prove him wrong. Recently New York’s Governor did so in spectacular fashion, calling up the National Guard to enter the city and stand guard on the subway in response to a 23% increase in subway crime over the past year. Apparently New York is safe, but only if you don’t take public transit.
Despite our worrying downward trend, downtown Dallas is not yet lost to crime. The city teems with potential, but it teeters on the same precipice that has been the downfall of metropolises like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Leaders in these cities have tried to spin their decline as a “work in progress” or a “reshuffling”—but crime victims know that every murdered citizen is a choice by policymakers.
The proof is at the ballot box. On Super Tuesday this year, two propositions in San Francisco passed by over 60%: one expanded police capability to fight crime and enforce the law, and the other enacted drug testing as a measure to stop drug crime among recipients of subsidies. The overwhelming support for both of these propositions in a major city like San Francisco shows that all Americans prefer not to live amongst rising crime.
The unsettling contrast between perceived safety and actual risk in Dallas necessitates an urgent reassessment of our crime strategy—before we end up like New York City.
We urgently need to hire more police officers and support the officers we have in upholding laws that keep the city livable and attracts businesses and residents who want to move to the city center. And leaders must prioritize tangible security over reassuring optics, forging a safer city grounded in reality, not just reassuring headlines.
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Louis is the head of a Dallas Fort Worth business coalition called the Metroplex Civic & Business Association, which represents over 130 companies and 10,000 employees in the city. He and all MCBA members share a concern for safe streets in their city, and believe that supporting law enforcement is the way to get there.
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Is Dallas facing a crime problem? Or is the city safer than ever? It depends who you ask.
A friend of mine was recently visiting Dallas to perform at the halftime show for one of our local sports teams. Before the performance, she walked from the venue to a local convenience store for water. While walking into the store, a homeless woman grabbed her arm and held it in the door, slamming the door repeatedly and injuring her arm while screaming death threats. Thankfully, my friend was able to wrestle her arm away and escape the scene.
Soon after, Gallup released a nationwide poll asking Americans to rank the safety of 16 major U.S. cities. Dallas came in first, a marketing victory that Mayor Eric Johnson did not fail to tout in a Wall Street Journal op-ed soon after.
Who is my friend going to believe, a distinguished research firm and the city’s Mayor, or her own lying eyes? As a performer who solo travels all over the world, she has never been assaulted—until she came to Dallas.
The truth about Dallas crime is much more worrying than public perception has yet grasped. Satisfied with the reassuring declarations of our leaders that their public safety measures have been successful, too many Dallas residents are turning a blind eye to some worrying trends.
Yes, it’s true that overall crime reports and especially violent crime appear to be down since 2022, according to city records. But while overall violence seems to be decreasing, the ultimate danger in a big city—murder—was the second-highest in nearly 20 years, a 15% increase from 2022 to 2023.
FBI crime data reveals that the recent decrease in crime is down from an all-time high in 2019-20, and has yet to even come close to the safety levels of the past 20 years. Also, while violent crime seems to have decreased, so-called “nonviolent crime,” which can include forced entry, purse snatching, arson, vandalism, and human trafficking, has been steadily increasing.
And these reported crimes might just be the tip of the iceberg. The Dallas Police Department now has a policy of ignoring 911 calls for theft, burglary, shoplifting, and hit-and-run accidents, instead requiring callers to fill out an online form. Common sense dictates that this will make crime victims less likely across the board to seek a police response.
To find out our city’s real crime data, police reports would have to be supplemented by an unvarnished glimpse into the appointment calendars of locksmiths, window replacers, security system providers, and property repair services for graffiti and other forms of vandalism.
The lack of response to 911 calls is a triage measure by the Dallas PD to prioritize dangerous crimes like sexual assault and home invasion in the face of a declining number of officers per capita. But even despite police dispatch ignoring such a large portion of 911 calls, some crimes take up to seven hours for police to respond—enough time for the perpetrator to drive from Dallas to Memphis.
With such a lingering police response, would it be surprising if Dallasites were leaving crimes unreported en masse? My friend left her own attack unreported, assuming there was nothing police would or could do about a violent criminal roaming the local area.
Cross referencing the city’s crime data with personnel data from the Dallas Police Department reveals a commonsense solution. As the number of Dallas Police Department officers per capita dipped in recent years, crime rates shot upward. This inverse relationship underscores a critical shortfall in our city’s security apparatus. As the police force dwindles, the thin blue line that separates civility from chaos becomes perilously overstretched. We need more cops.
Hiring more cops is not a call for some kind of surveillance state with warrantless searches and a squad car on every block. It is not call for a war on criminals, either. The call to increase the number of police officers in Dallas is a call to improve our lives. We need to enforce our laws, and to do so we need an adequate number of law enforcement personnel. Without them, our city is chaos, and our laws mean nothing.
Right now, our leaders are not helping. In recent times our District Attorney, John Creuzot, has bragged about closing over a dozen prisons through non-prosecution policies and his so-called “theft amnesty”, which allowed items less than $750 in value to be stolen without penalty. Having a DA who sympathizes with criminals doesn’t make law-abiding citizens feel safe.
Sometimes the propensity of leaders to get high on their own supply of propaganda reaches a crescendo of absurdity. Mayor Eric Adams of New York constantly calls his city the safest in America, daring his critics to prove him wrong. Recently New York’s Governor did so in spectacular fashion, calling up the National Guard to enter the city and stand guard on the subway in response to a 23% increase in subway crime over the past year. Apparently New York is safe, but only if you don’t take public transit.
Despite our worrying downward trend, downtown Dallas is not yet lost to crime. The city teems with potential, but it teeters on the same precipice that has been the downfall of metropolises like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Leaders in these cities have tried to spin their decline as a “work in progress” or a “reshuffling”—but crime victims know that every murdered citizen is a choice by policymakers.
The proof is at the ballot box. On Super Tuesday this year, two propositions in San Francisco passed by over 60%: one expanded police capability to fight crime and enforce the law, and the other enacted drug testing as a measure to stop drug crime among recipients of subsidies. The overwhelming support for both of these propositions in a major city like San Francisco shows that all Americans prefer not to live amongst rising crime.
The unsettling contrast between perceived safety and actual risk in Dallas necessitates an urgent reassessment of our crime strategy—before we end up like New York City.
We urgently need to hire more police officers and support the officers we have in upholding laws that keep the city livable and attracts businesses and residents who want to move to the city center. And leaders must prioritize tangible security over reassuring optics, forging a safer city grounded in reality, not just reassuring headlines.
--
Louis is the head of a Dallas Fort Worth business coalition called the Metroplex Civic & Business Association, which represents over 130 companies and 10,000 employees in the city. He and all MCBA members share a concern for safe streets in their city, and believe that supporting law enforcement is the way to get there.
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Comments
2024-05-17T18:04-0400 | Comment by: Buzz
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