Criminal homicides continue to batter away at Dallas’ communities of color as the Dallas Police Department struggles to get a handle on the city’s murder rate amid a serious staffing shortage.
According to the City of Dallas crime overview dashboard, there have been 216 murders this year as of November 10, a 12.5% increase over the 192 incidents reported during the same period in 2022.
A deeper dive into the statistics via the City’s victim demographics dashboard continues to show that people of color, primarily men and boys, make up the majority of murder victims.
Of the 216 victims logged so far this year, 121 of them were black, comprising 56% of the total. Some 66 of the victims were Hispanic or Latino, clocking a 30.6% share of the total.
Looking further into the split, 84.3% of black murder victims in Dallas were men or boys, with a median age of 30. The youngest victim was 7-year-old Kyrie Barnes, who was hit by celebratory gunfire over Fourth of July weekend, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is currently offering a $15,000 reward for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever was responsible for the killing.
Anyone with information about the shooting is advised to contact the ATF at (972) 974-4867. Information can also be relayed to [email protected] or through the ATF website.
Of the 66 Hispanic or Latino murder victims recorded this year, 52 were male, with the youngest victim logged as 11 years old.
The victim demographics dashboard shows that there were 19 white murder victims so far this year, in addition to four people of Middle Eastern descent and two people of Asian descent. Four other murder victims were logged as “UNKNOWN.”
DPD has been short-staffed in recent years, operating with a force of under 3,200 officers. A City analysis recommends that a jurisdiction the size of Dallas should have about three officers on staff for every 1,000 residents, putting an ideal staffing level at around 4,000 officers.
The shortage has been felt in Downtown Dallas, which regularly clocks higher crime rates than nearby Fort Worth’s downtown area. A dedicated police unit patrols the latter alongside private security guards.
