Crime in Council Member Paul Ridley’s District 14 is still ticking up despite the best efforts of a short-staffed Dallas Police Department.
Situated in the city center, comprising half of Downtown plus the Uptown and M Streets neighborhoods, District 14 has seen a number of year-over-year increases in certain categories of crime.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Downtown Dallas has been rife with criminal activity, logging considerably higher crime rates than Fort Worth’s downtown area. Fort Worth’s city center is reportedly patrolled by a special police unit working alongside private security officers.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, there has been a 46.3% increase in motor vehicle thefts in the district as of October 31, jumping from 1,166 incidents to 1,706.
In a previous interview with CBS News Texas, DPD Chief Eddie Garcia acknowledged the effects of the department’s staffing shortage and how it has hampered efforts to check the city’s skyrocketing rate of auto theft.
“Staffing has always been an issue, there’s no question about it,” Garcia said. “The city of Dallas is the ninth largest city in the country, and I have about 12 individuals assigned to auto theft.”
Analysis suggests that a city of Dallas’ size should have roughly 4,000 officers on staff. There are currently fewer than 3,200 trying to maintain public safety.
District 14 has seen hikes in other types of criminal offenses as well. Drug violations increased by 11.8%, and robberies jumped by 18%.
A request for comment was emailed to Council Member Ridley, but The Dallas Express received no response by press time.
The Dallas Express, The People’s Paper, believes that important information about the city, such as crime rates and trends, should be easily accessible to you. Dallas has more crime per capita than hotspots like Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York, according to data from the FBI’s UCR database.
How did your area stack up on crime? Check out our interactive Crime Map to compare all Dallas City Council Districts. Curious how we got our numbers? Check out our methodology page here.
