Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia is considering redrawing the seven patrol district lines, repositioning officers to decrease response time in 2023.
Jon Fortune, Dallas’ deputy city manager, highlighted a report on December 9 based on DPD’s dashboard, which showed response time to calls getting slower over the course of 2022.
In November of 2022, it took officers an average of 10.42 minutes to respond to 911 calls, up from 8.7 minutes in the same month in 2021.
The report also revealed that the department has 600 fewer officers than it did in October 2011.
DPD’s most recent response time summary report on January 4 showed that response time had risen even further, to 12.6 minutes.
As such, Garcia considers redrawing patrol lines a possible avenue for addressing these issues. Adding supervisors in 2023 is another.
“Looking at the city, looking at the dynamics, as the city changes, population changes, population shifts, calls for service shift, staffing numbers shift, and we need to shift along with it,” said Garcia. “So, we need to look at that.”
Kristin Lowman, assistant director of the DPD media relations office, told The Dallas Express that this change is being considered due to changes in population, zoning, and increases in calls for service and the need for staff.
Lowman said the last time patrol borders were defined was between 2006 and 2007.
The City budget for fiscal year 2021-22 stated the goal of officers is to respond to 60% of priority one calls within eight minutes. To meet this goal, the budget added funding, accounted for 911 system enhancements, and sought to increase police staffing.
Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax has previously stated, “There is not a single strategy that will improve response time, but instead, it will take multiple approaches to increase the efficiency of police response and increase our overall capacity for response.”
As DPD’s response time has spiked, so too has crime across the city — an epidemic that city leaders have failed to address through 2022 and the first days of 2023.