Dallas police officials say there has been areas of improvement. Business robberies decreased by almost 60%. But other areas, like aggravated assault and murder, have seen notable increases.
Aggravated assaults increased to almost 15% and homicides rates have increased nearly 10% in January, compared to the same month last year.
And police officials also detected some unusual trends involving violent crime.
“We’re having less incidents, but more victims,” DPD Major Jason Scoggins said at Monday’s meeting.
Scoggins said one explanation is that many violent crimes occur in highly populated areas of Dallas, where there's potentially more victims.
January had the lowest number of violent crime incidents in the past five years. But that doesn't tell the whole story.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia noted that officers responded to one shooting incident with 19 victims.
“Our goal is to reduce incidents, and by reducing incidents we reduce victims,” Garcia said Monday.
This comes after Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and other city officials have pointed to a decrease in crime over the past two years.
“When I took office three and a half years ago, crime was rising and our police department was shrinking,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a video address earlier this year.
“And we can proudly say we have achieved two consecutive years of violent crime reduction in our city.”
When asked on Monday what the city could do to help the Dallas Police Department in its goal to reduce victims of crime police officials had one response.
“We need to grow as a department. We need more staff,” Chief Garcia said.
Garcia said more police officers on the street can “lower the fever.” The City of Dallas had planned to spend just over $1 billion on public safety in FY2022 — 60% of the city’s general fund.
Police officials also set a hiring goal of 250 officers last year but fell short of that number. They said this year, they are aiming for hiring 300 new officers.
“This is a national issue…there is not a police chief in America that would not say their number one need is more police officers on the street,” Garcia said.
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