A woman was assaulted and robbed by several strangers at her home in Northwest Dallas over the weekend.
The Briarwood woman was reportedly pulling into her garage around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 21, when four unknown men confronted her in the garage. She was violently assaulted and the four suspects searched her home for valuables, per Candy’s Dirt.
Dallas Police were called to her home in the 4800 block of Elsby Ave. around 10:10 p.m. for an aggravated robbery of an individual. No medical transport was needed for the woman.
Neighbors have been on edge after the crime happened in what they call an otherwise safe area.
“There’s always cops patrolling especially down this one street over here that’s a little more isolated, so again I never really felt unsafe so the whole thing is shocking,” said Jessika Green, who has lived in the neighborhood for two years, to NBC 5 DFW. “Generally we’ve been really happy. We moved from downtown near the Farmer’s Market so we felt like this was much safer.”
No arrests have been made. Despite rumors circulating on neighborhood groups online, police have not released a description of the suspects.
Briarwood has its own volunteer-run Briarwood Crime Watch Neighborhood Association, which focuses on crime prevention in the community. The association is privately funded by 250 of Briarwood’s 550 households.
The group told NBC 5 that it is working alongside police and their Expanded Neighborhood Patrol to inform neighbors about the situation.
The investigation remains ongoing.
As of September 25, Dallas has logged 4,521 aggravated assaults and 4,247 instances of burglary in 2024, per the City’s Crime Analytics Dashboard.
The Dallas Police Department has guidance posted on its website to help residents and business owners identify the risks to be aware of to prevent being victimized by a burglar:
- Unfamiliar vehicles idling in driveways or back alleys with no apparent purpose, possibly with no visible license plates, that drive at night with their headlights off.
- Unfamiliar individuals on a property looking into windows.
- Unfamiliar individuals taking items from a building or apartment while the owners are not there.
- Unfamiliar individuals stacking household items by a door or window, potentially for easy retrieval.
- Unfamiliar individuals leaving a location in a rush with items in hand, such as TVs, laptops, or other high-value items.
The Dallas Police Department has been struggling to keep crime under control as it remains woefully understaffed. Despite a prior City analysis calling for a force of around 4,000 officers, the department only fields around 3,000, negatively impacting response times. DPD’s budget of $654 million this fiscal year is also smaller than law enforcement agencies in other high-crime cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.