Local officials are calling on Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and other transit agencies to provide their crime statistics.
Officials on the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) of the North Central Texas Council of Governments unanimously demanded crime statistics from transit agencies, including DART, on September 11.
This demand comes after Dallas City Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said DART was withholding detailed crime data, as The Dallas Express reported at the time.
The RTC brings together city and county officials from North Texas with leaders from local transit agencies to coordinate transportation projects. It operates under the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), a metropolitan planning organization that controls billions in federal transit dollars.
Mendelsohn is one of the members of the RTC. During the latest meeting, she moved to ask its transit agencies – DART, Denton County Transit Authority, and Trinity Metro – to share their crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System. This is the same format the FBI uses to track local crime.
“I’d be interested in seeing if we might want to adopt a different policy, asking our transit agencies to provide their crime reports to this body for evaluation,” Mendelsohn said in the meeting.
Denton County Judge Andy Eads said he would support the move, which Mendelsohn said would apply to “all transit agencies” on the council.
“I move to request staff to collect current crime data, preferably in a NIBRS format, for presentation to the RTC,” Mendelsohn said. Eads seconded the motion.
The motion passed, with every member voting in favor – including DART Chair Gary Slagel. Numerous leaders from the region are now backing Mendelsohn’s transparency efforts.
Seeking the Numbers
DART was withholding important crime statistics, Mendelsohn previously told The Dallas Express.
“I’ve requested multiple times for them to post their crime stats in the format that organizations report to the FBI,” she said at the time. “I think they are using NIBRS – they’re not posting the report.”
The agency sometimes provides general overviews of crime in its services, like in the DART Police Quarterly Updates. Still, while Dallas updates its NIBRS crime dashboard daily, DART apparently only posted these reports as recently as 2022.
Mendelsohn said at the time she wanted the “full assortment of how crimes are classified, so that we can compare apples to apples.”
DART Representative Jeamy Molina told The Dallas Express at the time that the agency sends its NIBRS reports to Texas DPS.
“DART is investing in security measures to help ensure our system is safe,” Molina said at that point. “We have our agency security strategy, an offshoot of our strategic plan that focuses on providing safe service across our member cities.”
The Dallas Express asked specifically why DART doesn’t post recent NIBRS data on its webpage, but Molina repeated that “NIBRS reports are sent to DPS.”
Mendelsohn asked DART Police Chief Charles Cato during a joint meeting in 2023 if DART was reporting all its crimes in NIBRS. He stated that he believed the data was available on the website, but Mendelsohn corrected him.
“I’ll get with our communications team about developing a link to put it out there, so it can be seen,” Cato told her at the time.
Despite Cato’s response, DART still only publishes NIBRS data as recent as 2022.
“He said that it would be added, and it hasn’t,” Mendelsohn said at the time.
Mendelsohn said NIBRS is the more accurate way to track crime, as it counts individual victims rather than incidents.
Transit Crime
DART is launching its massive Silver Line on October 25, a project that has been years in the making. As The Dallas Express previously reported, the 26-mile line will run from Plano to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
NCTCOG Director of Transportation Michael Morris – who has earned nicknames like “King of the Roads” and “King of Gridlock” – previously told The Dallas Express that criticism of public transportation is “well-founded, well-grounded.”
However, Morris also believes there has been “significant progress” to “increase enforcement” of fares on Dallas public transit.
Still, mayors and officials from Plano, Carrollton, and Farmers Branch previously told The Dallas Express that DART lines have been bringing homeless people into their suburbs. DART crime also increased by 26% from FY 2022 to 2023, and then by 56% from FY 2023 to 2024.
Case in point, a man with a machete threatened passengers on an early morning DART commute in 2024, as Fox 4 reported.
A suspect also stabbed and killed a man, then fled on a nearby DART train in July. Hours later, officers found him at a DART station 12 miles away.
Molina previously encouraged riders to “be vigilant” with the agency’s “See Something, Say Something” anti-theft campaign.
“I think the public deserves the transparency of knowing what is happening in terms of safety incidents at DART,” Mendelsohn said at the time.
Members of the RTC – including prominent local leaders – have now joined Mendelsohn, calling for transparent crime data.