Dallas police have announced the arrest of two minors in connection to a murder committed near a city recreation center late last month.
The fatal shooting happened on June 24 at Willie Mae Butler Park in District 7, represented by Council Member Adam Bazaldua.
Dallas Police Department officers responding to reports of a shooting arrived at the scene at approximately 10:45 p.m. and found a male victim, later identified as 21-year-old Cristian Adrian Guillen-Ramirez, unresponsive, according to ABC 8 WFAA.
Guillen-Ramirez was pronounced dead at the scene.
An investigation into the murder near the Larry Johnson Recreation Center — the same location where a 9-year-old boy was robbed and assaulted in November 2021 — led to two male minors as suspects.
Aged 13 and 16, the two suspects were taken into custody on July 18, according to WFAA. They face charges of both aggravated assault and murder.
Their names have been withheld due to their age, and no further details about the case were provided.
The investigation is still ongoing, and DPD urges anyone with pertinent information about this crime to contact Detective Thomas French via email at [email protected] or call directly at 214-671-3650.
District 7 saw significant year-over-year increases in motor vehicle thefts in April, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The crime rate has risen across the city, with DPD facing an ongoing shortage of officers. The department currently employs roughly 3,100 officers, much fewer than the estimated 4,000 needed to adequately police the city.
Downtown Dallas faces a much higher crime rate than in the city center of Fort Worth, where the city has implemented a dedicated police unit to patrol the area.
Homicide rates, in particular, have seen a spike of 23% during the first four months of the year in Dallas. More recent statistics have been declared “unreliable” by the City due to a ransomware attack against the servers in early May.