Editor’s Note: In 2019, murders in Dallas spiked to the highest level in more than a decade. This year, The Dallas Morning News is tracking the city’s homicides, exploring the impact on families and neighborhoods and examining the possible causes of the rise in violence.
Marleny’s voice shook. The Pleasant Grove resident unfolded a note she wrote for Dallas police officials at a packed meeting last month. The key message? How violence was plaguing her neighborhood.
Despite her calls during last summer and through the year, police did not stop the gunfire from escalating, she said. In December, a 26-year-old man was shot to death on her street, she recalled. Someone else was also shot multiple times in the same incident near Lake June and Jim Miller roads.
“That person dead could have been one of us,” she told Chief U. Reneé Hall at the January forum. Many in the crowd clapped and nodded in agreement, recounting similar stories of open drug deals at convenience stores, dangerous drag racing that killed an 8-year-old girl and gunshots at night that make the area sound like a war zone. Marleny gave only her first name to The Dallas Morning News out of fear of retaliation.
The chief had hosted similar meetings since late last year — “listening sessions” designed to focus on the department’s five-year strategic plan.
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But residents who packed the classroom on Eastfield College’s Pleasant Grove campus on Jan. 28 had little patience for plans or timelines.
An unusual violent crime uptick in 2019 struck nearly every major neighborhood in Dallas, leaving people feeling uneasy and fearful. The city ended the year with more than 200 homicides, a record high since 2007. The month of May alone saw a spike of 40 people killed.
And the bloodshed has not abated.
In January, 18 people were killed, according to The News’ tally. A year ago at this time, the city recorded 15 homicides.
In a meeting Monday with The News’ editorial board, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said he was concerned with the overall violent crime rate for January. Aggravated assaults continue to drive most of the city’s violence.
“They are not going in the right direction,” Johnson said, referring to the crime trends.
Despite urgent and repeated questions from city officials — led by Johnson — seeking an explanation for the violence, police officials cannot point to any one issue.
The causes are complex and span the spectrum of societal issues: domestic violence, poverty and disinvestment, gangs and access to guns that can make a confrontation lethal. Other factors could be repeat offenders caught in a cycle of recidivism, or the number of patrol officers on the beat.
Dallas saw a higher uptick in violent crime in 2019 than Houston or San Antonio, according to a report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association on the top 10 largest cities. Others, including Chicago and Phoenix, saw decreases, the report shows.
Late last year, Johnson demanded a violent crime plan from Hall, which she presented to the City Council the first week of January. A task force he created issued a series of recommendations on how to use community resources to curtail crime.
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Johnson and city officials reacted negatively to Hall’s plan because they felt the goals needed to be more ambitious. Hall defended her plan, saying the objectives were based on the department’s history on crime reduction.
Council member Cara Mendelsohn, who represents Far North Dallas, called the 5% crime reduction plan for 2020 “outrageously low.”
“If you don’t make a goal, well that’s OK,” Mendelsohn said. “But if your goal is only 5%, guess what — that is probably the best we’re ever going to do.”
Even as discussions about the crime reduction plans got underway, the city was stunned to learn of the death of 1-year-old Rory Norman. The toddler from South Dallas was fatally shot when bullets were fired into a house Jan. 5, an act police called “deliberate and targeted.” The shooter is still at large.
Rory’s killing prompted an emotional response from the chief, who at a news conference issued a plea, a warning, a demand to the city:
“This s--- has to stop.”
The impact
Though it is too early in the year to discern any notable patterns or long-term trends in homicides so far in 2020, the overwhelming majority occurred in two Dallas Police Department patrol stations: South Central, which includes the Singing Hills area in Oak Cliff; and Southeast, which includes Valentine Street in the Bonton neighborhood, where Rory was killed, and also Pleasant Grove.
Two women were among the victims in January: 40-year-old Callisha Parks, who died in east Oak Cliff after being shot as she got out of and ran from an SUV driven by the alleged shooter, and Emily Sarah Bingabing, shot to death in the parking lot of a Far North Dallas Walmart.
All the other victims were men, and of those identified by race, most were black or Hispanic. They included Marc Strickland, an 18-year-old shot during a basketball game between Kimball and South Oak Cliff high schools. Jalon Spencer, a 21-year-old who once played football for Skyline High School, was found dead at an apartment complex in the Cedars — shot to death less than a mile from Dallas police headquarters.
It’s possible that two of the 18 cases under investigation may later be deemed justified. Of those, one man was killed after he attempted to rob someone at a patio cookout in West Dallas. In the other, officers at the Dallas VA Medical Center fatally shot a veteran with a history of mental illness because he wouldn’t drop a weapon, authorities said.
The numbers can’t show the anguish of mothers like Ebony Miller, who lost her son Rory on Jan. 5. She was asleep in her children’s bedroom when the gunfire shattered their window, killing Rory and injuring Ebony’s brother Jaylon Miller, 20, who was in another room.
In an interview with The News, the 25-year-old mother said she struggles to stay strong for her family.
“I know I’m not really OK, but as long as I’m busy, I’m doing fine,” Miller told columnist Sharon Grigsby. “Mentally, I’m not.”
Calling on community
During her listening tour, Hall called the violence in Pleasant Grove “unacceptable.” She promised to investigate how officers in the Southeast division respond to shooting calls.
At many of the meetings, city and police officials stressed the importance of community involvement in crime-fighting efforts. As part of Hall’s sessions, high-ranking police commanders have promoted their VIP, or volunteers in patrol, program, a neighborhood crime watch partnership between police and residents.
Officers train members on how to best report crimes and work with law enforcement on solving violent cases. Volunteers then patrol their neighborhoods and help report suspicious activity.
“We’ll sit down on a regular basis,” Hall said of the volunteer program. “We tell one another the who, what, the where.”
At the Pleasant Grove meeting, Hall said she wanted to see more residents involved. Currently, the Northeast division has the most volunteers on patrol. The Southeast Division will hold a meeting Feb. 22 to train people in the Pleasant Grove area.
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“There is no excuse,” Hall said. “We can’t come here and ask for your help and you provide us with your help and then we don’t respond.”
Since Jan. 6, the department has zeroed in on high crime areas by apprehending violent offenders. The chief’s plan, presented early this year, has among its key strategies a violent crime task force made up of narcotics, gang, SWAT and mounted patrol units.
Deputy Chief Teena Schultz, who oversees the violent crime task force, said in an interview that every patrol division has identified about five or six areas, known as hot spots, that drive crime in the area.
When police officials reviewed crime statistics from 2018 and 2019, they found four divisions led the violent crime increase: Northeast, Southwest, South Central and Southeast, she said. A spokesman for the department said because of covert operations as a part of the task force, officials could not provide specific locations.
During a roundup, the task force arrested 112 out of 142 of the most violent offenders who had outstanding warrants, Schultz told council members Monday. In addition to enforcement, Schultz said, officers are out in the community meeting residents and business owners.
“It’s more than just the enforcement,” Schultz said, adding that police officers want the community to “be comfortable coming to us as law enforcement as well and giving us information.”
“Basically, our goal is the same,” she said. “Everybody wants to be able to play on their front porch and have their kids ride their bike.”
If you go:
Southeast Division Volunteers in Patrol training
Date: Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020
Time: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Place: Bexar Street Satellite Station at 5411 Bexar St.
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