A suspect shot a man just down the street from the American Airlines Center in broad daylight Saturday afternoon as the Dallas Police Department remains significantly understaffed.
The shooting happened around 12 p.m. at North Houston Street and Nowitzki Way in Victory Park,
“The preliminary investigation determined when officers arrived that a man was shot. The man was transported to a local hospital by Dallas Fire-Rescue with non-life-threatening injuries,” DPD public information officer Melinda Gutierrez told The Dallas Express.
DX followed up and asked if a suspect was in custody but did not receive a response prior to publication.
As previously reported by DX, former Dallas mayor Laura Miller suggested that the city center was essentially safe following a luncheon last week put on by Downtown Dallas Inc. She pointed to a national cheerleading championship being held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center as proof that Downtown Dallas did not have a serious crime problem.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, there were 3,102 crimes committed in 2020 in DPD Sector 130, which comprises Historic Downtown and Victory Park. In 2021, 3,863 crimes were reported. The following year, 4,312 crimes were committed, and in 2023, officials logged another increase, with 4,698 crimes clocked.
DX reached out to Miller and asked her if Saturday afternoon’s daytime shooting was the kind of “non-crime” she previously suggested was going on in the city center.
DPD has been working to get crime under control amid a staffing shortage that has resulted in only around 3,000 officers patrolling Dallas’ streets. A previous City analysis determined that approximately 4,000 was a more appropriate figure for a jurisdiction the size of Dallas.
City officials only budgeted $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, with City officials voting to spend much less on public safety than other high-crime jurisdictions like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
As previously reported by DX, monthly comparative crime studies conducted by the Metroplex Civic & Business Association find much more criminal activity in Downtown Dallas than in Fort Worth’s city center, the latter of which is patrolled by private security guards and a dedicated neighborhood police unit.
