The Irving Police Department purportedly used a civilian to guard a baggie of methamphetamine, which the good Samaritan had reported to police, for around an hour until officers arrived.
The incident began when an Irving resident, whose identity is known to The Dallas Express but has been withheld at her request, found a baggie full of a white substance at the Kroger Fuel Center on S. MacArthur Boulevard in Irving. At 8:15 p.m. on July 25, the resident reported the parcel by calling an Irving police officer she knew directly.
Around 15 minutes later, at 8:28 p.m., after a squad car had failed to arrive, the resident called the police non-emergency number. At 8:50 p.m., she again called the non-emergency line. Just after 9:00 p.m., she made a fourth call to her policeman acquaintance.
Each time she called the police, the resident claimed that department officials asked her to stay with the drugs until officers arrived.
As darkness fell around 8:30 p.m., the resident said she was feeling “scared” as she and her family watched over the narcotics and were purportedly approached by vagrants seeking handouts. Her family was also worried about what type of character they might meet if the owner of the illegal drugs came back in search of their meth.
At 9:15 p.m., an hour after the resident’s initial call, an officer arrived.
The baggie contained 3.5 grams of methamphetamine, according to the police report, which was obtained by DX.
Irving City Council Member Luis Canosa was quick to highlight the likely issue behind the slow response and how local leaders were failing to deal with it.
“The city is working on a mild budget increase for the police department that would include an insufficient improvement in the number of police officers and equipment. Insufficient to deliver the improvements in safety that we need and that voters have asked for,” he told DX.
“Our crime rates are much higher than reported; a lot of our communities, mainly Hispanics and those here illegally, don’t trust the police and won’t call to report crimes,” he added. “We don’t even know what’s really going on, but the citizens say it’s really bad, and my election results are a sign that’s the case.”
“I’m pushing for a much more ambitious package that will send a message to families and businesses, telling them that things are about to change, and that will scare the criminals out of Irving. Anything less than that is not acceptable,” he added.
DX also contacted Irving Police Chief Derick Miller, but he did not respond by publication.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department has also been suffering from staffing issues, fielding only around 3,000 officers when a prior City analysis advised that roughly 4,000 were necessary. A proposed charter amendment may give Dallas voters the opportunity to mandate City officials to boost DPD’s capacity to that level.
